


Yautja PI: Trouble in Paradise

by iblankedonmyname, iterations



Category: Aliens vs Predators Series - Various Authors, Predator (Yautja) & Related Fandoms, Predator (Yautja) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Sex, Anal Sex, Attempt at Humor, Blood and Gore, Bromance, Detective Noir, Dread Sucking, Enforcers chasing Bad Bloods, Fluff and Angst, It's gonna get complicated, Love in all shapes and sizes, Multi, Mystery, Pleasure dome, Romance, Rough Sex, Self-Discovery, They pick up women, Threesome - F/M/M, Trafficking, Vaginal Sex, Yautja, catch the killer, or actually, the women pick up them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:40:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 47,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iblankedonmyname/pseuds/iblankedonmyname, https://archiveofourown.org/users/iterations/pseuds/iterations
Summary: They came toVegato hunt a bad blood but ended up in a vortex of lies, debauchery, and self-discovery.
Relationships: Yautja/Yautja (Predator)
Comments: 143
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Iterations and I have been working on this story since June, and it's wild to finally start posting it. I guess _word to the wise_ is "this is not going to go how you think it's going to go." ~Enjoy

_Dreadall_ was as sleek as the dark steel of a loaded weapon. The ship befitted the high status of enforcers, especially a team as accomplished as the two that inhabited it. Kuz’Agra’s piercing talons clanked on the black tile sharply as he hurried through the bowels of the ship.

The yautja bad blood notice had flashed red in his mask moments ago as he settled into a morning centering exercise. He threw open the message at the flick of an eye. The vertical pupils of his gray eyes sped through the characters. His mandibles worked in a snarl. This wasn’t just any bad blood, this crime was despicable. The ingrate had disturbed a bloodening trial, and a prestigious one as well. A clan leader’s pup was _interfered_ with.

Attached to the message was the final mask recordings of the young bloods from every possible perspective. He barrelled through it, quickly digesting the facts. The trial was going badly. There was a ceiling cave-in that killed two of the participants as well as several black serpents, but one of the recordings captured an _interloper_ escaping the scene! The overseer even caught the tail end of the vessel departing the atmosphere.

Immediately, the enforcer was thrown into action. He stormed the corridor, but before heading directly to the navigation chamber, Agra stuck his head into his partner’s private cabin.

“Did you see it?”

“What do you think?” His partner was already suiting up. His weapons cabinet was splayed open, showcasing dozens of lethal armaments.

Agra chittered. Cin'Taka was so discourteous in the morning, but he didn’t have to say anything else. He knew he’d see his green friend shortly after making it to the navigation chamber.

Agra was no stranger to a sudden change in schedule. He preferred it. It meant there was work to be done. This criminal had to be eviscerated. He hoped publicly. It would add extra spice to his triumph. In the old legends, bad bloods would be tortured before death. Every last drop of vile blood drained from their bodies before the end. Now yautja were all about efficiency. He supposed he was too. He was lauded as being brutally efficient, but he would prefer to be remembered for doggedly pursuing the truth.

The navigation chamber was as dark and metallic as the rest of the ship. The front viewport was multifaceted like a chunk of cut, black obsidian. He moved the bad blood notice onto the larger screen in a flash, and tapped out some instructions on the console’s keypad.

With an astral trail and a ship description attached to the notice, he only had to wait for the computer to link up the basic heading and final location of the bad blood’s ship. He clicked his talons on the floor in sequence. In the mirror-plating of the console, he caught sight of himself and tucked an unruly lock back with the rest.

The console binged.

Under his mask, his eyes narrowed.

 _Vega_. The ship was registered as arriving at Vega.

The chamber’s door whirled softly open. Agra only had to glance up higher on the mirror-plating to see Taka enter behind him.

“Fancy a party?” Agra chirped.

“I _fancy_ breakfast.” His partner's mood was always grim before he got something in his stomach.

“Lucky then for both of us. The bad blood is at a party. There'll be plenty of food for you to choose from on Vega.”

Taka approached the console screen next to him, and Kuz’Agra took a moment to look him over. He was slightly shorter with thicker legs, and in contrast to Agra’s olive and red coloring, his was fluorescent green with specks of orange trailing along his upper body. He kept his tresses wild.

“Thermal netting again?” Agra threw another quick glance at the mesh covering his body.

Taka shrugged. “It’s comfortable. It works. Lay off.”

Agra glanced back to the screen. “Anyway Vega, my starving friend, have you ever been?”

“Yeah once.” The bright green enforcer parked himself in one of the pilot's chairs. He pulled out a drawer from the console and picked out a strip of jerky he started to absentmindedly munch on.

“Ha. I remember now.” Agra chuckled, a bug-rustling sound. “You won a thousand credits betting on a slug race and lost your virginity. Got thrown out of a hotel for fraudulent behavior, banned for life, right? How could I forget." He didn't wait for Taka to actually confirm or deny anything. The moody grunt the other male gave between mouthfuls of meat was reply enough.

"Anyway, do you remember how long their orbital cycle is?”

Taka swallowed the last piece of food and scratched his cheek with a lower mandible. “It’s two hundred standard years.” He said tentatively. "What's your point?"

“My point is, the comet takes two hundred years around the star.” Agra clucked at him.

Taka stared at him dumbly. It was likely too early to play guessing games. Agra figured he was in for a fight in the training room later. All the better. Agra went on in Taka’s silence.

“And this bad blood picked Vega a couple of days before their New Year's Eve. I’ve heard it’s the party to end all parties. A three-day affair. Swarms of aliens. Hoards of sins. And in the middle of it, this bad blood will be hiding. Is that exciting enough for you?”

Taka hmphed.

“It will be obscenely challenging...and there will be women there,” Agra added with a questioning tilt to his head.

“Alright, fine, I’m excited,” the green and orange yautja admitted with a chuckle.

“You should be. A fine trophy, and a fine story. The trajectory is locked in. Until then, training match?”

“I’m going to kick your ass.” Taka bounced up from his chair and gave his partner a playful slap on the shoulder.

Agra growled with false animosity, “Doubtful.”

They passed the rest of the time before docking locked in aggressive practice. The training only ended when one of them was on their back and pinned, or unconscious. Neither of them had knocked the other unconscious in some time, mostly because they both had become too aware of each other’s movements to fall for their tricks.

At the start it was difficult for either of them to make any of their strikes find a target. Their common warm-up would appear like a complex dance to a stranger watching them stretch their muscles. Agra had to push his familiar partner to falter. For yautja the fight was as intricate as a game of chess, predicting where their opponent would send their precise steps before their actual move. After an ungodly long time, Agra caught Taka off guard and his heel made contact with Taka’s rib.

The other male grunted and rolled away from the strike. He sprung up to slam his paws against Agra’s shoulders. Agra recoiled with his claws. Taka feinted a punch and kicked at his hip. Agra blocked with his arm and dropped to the ground. He kicked out, attempting to sweep his partner off his feet, but when Taka darted back and evaded the assault, Agra bristled. They could do this for hours more. Already he had some skin-deep scratches. He stalked forward and launched out with his claws. His wrist was grabbed and wrenched.

So yes, Taka was apparently still pissed about Agra’s ribbing from the morning. With a twisted wrist, Kuz’Agra noted his opponent was off balance at this angle and deftly tripped him. He plunged to the ground, hissing. Agra fell over him to attempt to pin the other’s shoulders, but Taka sat up quickly and struck him in the chin. Agra’s mask prevented a broken mandible, but he roared before twisting Taka’s arm up over his head to roll him onto his belly. Taka kicked him off and hopped to standing again. Agra cursed under his breath. Taka was a squirrely one. As they circled each other for another attack, the notification chime went off that the ship was cruising into port.

They concluded the match with a peaceable clasp of each other's shoulders. Taka accepted the gesture even though he was visibly annoyed about the interruption. It was written all over his body language.

From the navigation chamber’s viewport, they watched the ship glide toward Vega. The comet was electric with artificial lights and its bright-white, ice tail even from this far away. Agra admired the approach over the surface dome. It was a testament to alien engineering. The interlocking shield glittered in the starlight like a gigantic soap bubble.

Inside was the precious mixture of gases most carbon-based lifeforms needed to breathe, but also anything alien lifeforms used to _get their rocks off_ , as Vega’s catchy commercials would spout to a fun jingle over the galactic net. The large metropolis featured all manner of recreation; casinos, restaurants, arenas, brothels, theaters, parks, stores, and spas. Right in the city center was the destination to rival them all, the _Utopia_.

Agra could see Utopia through the dome. It sparkled like a white diamond through the shield’s iridescent sheen. The casino was the original Vega, but in the last thousand years, its success sprouted the entire city around it.

Kuz’Agra wasn’t a spiritualist in any way, but he could sense a certain electricity in the air. He had an instinct for these things, and already he was convinced this trip to Vega was going to be a trip they wouldn’t forget.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding a place to park was always a hassle on Vega. Cin'Taka disengaged the auto-pilot and flew down over the rocky desert that served as a parking lot. It was packed with ships and stretched for miles. Crowds were already amassing for the three day party.

"Perhaps there's a spot further out..." the green enforcer deliberated while keeping one eye on the viewport and the other on a holographic map over the area.

"Or we could just pay the fifteen credits an hour and park in the garage?" Agra suggested and threw his feet up on the console. He settled back into his seat cushion with his arms behind his head.

Taka flared his lower mandibles behind his visor and grunted, "Are you calling me cheap?" 

Agra chuckled and leaned forward on the console. "Depends," he clicked. "Are you opening your credit-account or are we walking until another enforcer catches the bad blood before we even cross the gates?"

The green enforcer chuffed at his joke and steered the ship into one of the pressurised vacuum tubes that lead below the surface of the comet. He looked at Agra and stated dryly, "I'm taking this out of your share of the bounty."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, partner," the olive and red male replied gravely.

The tube sucked them in and they were expelled into a large underground garage. They quickly found a spot suitable for the ship and Taka entered his account information in the registry. The machine spit out a plastic ticket with etched symbols on it.

"This is old-school…" Taka tapped his mandibles in a clicking chuckle and threw the ticket at Agra. "Best you keep it if you're paying our fee."

Agra snorted loudly in his mask, but he took the bill and placed it in his pouch.

Unlike the desert lots, the Vega’s parking garage housed the most wild collection of exotic and expensive space-faring vessels. Knife-nosed shuttles that belonged to successful entrepreneurs and celebrities sat like jeweled beetles in their assigned spaces, flawless and polished until the chrome shined bright enough to blind. The enforcers’ battle-scarred ship stuck out, but Taka bet it could outmaneuver any of these fancier models.

The two enforcers took the subterranean hyperloop to the entrance. When they stepped out of the pill-shaped transport, a drone hovered over their heads, most likely scanning their identification-chips. Their priority now was to find the ship in the notice and search it for clues leading to the bad blood.

The underground garage was heavily surveilled, but it was unlikely the bad blood parked his ship in such a place. The surface lot had surveillance as well, although not as routine. Agra examined the drone as it continued on its route.

"Do you think one of those caught the bad blood arriving?" He moved his gaze to Taka.

"Maybe… But they're a pain in the ass to hack," Taka replied. "I'm sure it sends the footage to a server though… If we get access to the central storage disc, I might be able to get something for us to work with."

Agra hummed his approval and followed Taka to the elevator. There was a VIP entrance leading straight to the city core but visitors lacking the clearance had to pass through a security check outside the city.

The elevator took them up to the surface. In front of them, the bright, strobing neon lights of Vega battered Taka's beady, yellow eyes behind the bio-mask. It felt as if he'd been here yesterday, even though it was centuries ago.

Vega was a non-conflict zone, prohibiting civilians to carry personal arms. Enforcers were no exception. Visitors had to check in any weapons with security before entering. Agra and Taka, aware of this rule beforehand, had left their weapons on the ship. The idea of a lesser species holding their precious items made both of them incredibly uncomfortable. When it came to other technological augmentations, security wasn't as strict. As yautja, they were allowed to keep their bio-masks and armor. Although certain features were locked down to ensure the integrity of other citizens, their ability to cloak being one of them. 

The main entrance to the pleasure dome was heavily guarded by four bulky aliens that reminded Taka of enormous oomanoid octopuses. The guards who were even larger than the two yautja, carried blades fastened on their tentacles and oval plasma cannons were attached to their round, inflated heads. The enforcers walked into the full body scanners to be identified and searched. 

The scanner beeped and flashed blue, indicating that they passed inspection. As the guards backed off to let them inside Vega, their bio-masks were automatically updated with the interior map of the facility and the schedule of all major upcoming events, including the pamphlet advertising the New Year's party held on the roof of the largest casino, _the Utopia._

Even without the large, blinking neon sign and flashing beacons, Utopia was still a focal point, dwarfing the other buildings surrounding it. They passed a holographic fountain pumping out the most unnatural-looking water, sparkling with glitter. The half-naked female ooman in the middle of the colorful spray beamed and recited the slogan; "Welcome to Utopia, the happiest place in the universe!" 

Taka felt a cold chill run down his spine as his memories threatened to surface. Now was not the time, they were on a mission.

The security office was located not far from the entrance. It was a rather plain, square building, lacking the dazzling neon signs that decorated the other establishments.

"Let's go shopping for some drone footage." Agra placed his paw on his friend's shoulder. 

Taka gave him a curt nod and slipped into the alley between the office and another industrial building. Agra followed close behind and glanced back to make sure none of the tourists milling about were looking.

"This is your show," Agra whispered when they were alone in the narrow space. "I'll wait here and keep an eye on the entrance."

Taka jumped up to grab a second story window sill. Heaving himself up and cutting a hole in the window proved to be easy. Luckily the laser in his bio-mask wasn't considered strong enough to be used as a weapon. He carefully placed the glass shard on the floor as he entered. The office was empty. Taka scanned it for access chips or anything useful but came up with nothing. Muted voices could be heard from the corridor outside. They soon faded.

When Taka deemed the coast clear he opened the door slowly and entered the hallway. It ended in a flight of stairs that led to a recreational area. Taka pressed himself to the stairwell wall and listened. It was the same ones he heard upstairs, obviously guards.

"...and do you know what I said to him? I said, I'd call in sick if I had to work the night shift and miss the ENTIRE party," one of the voices complained. "And then he said that he'd cut my salary by half if I tried to squirm my way out of work!"

"Fucking asshole," the other voice groaned. "I hope I get typhoid so I can go into the fat bastard's office and cough him in the face."

"Yeah." Taka heard the first one say, followed by a loud slurp. "Suits the bloated ass-face for making us miss the party. Not like anything happens here anyway."

"Let's go check the vending machine near the server room. This one's out of the fruity nut-bars I like," the second one griped. His whining was followed by a heavy sigh. 

The guards clomped away again and Taka followed them down another corridor. He passed a lot of empty offices. It looked like many of the workers had taken time off. At least the New Year's party had brought them some tailwind.

While the guards were busy with the snack machine, Taka was keeping an eye on the thick door with a sign posted warning for static electricity. 

A technician wearing a chequered shirt and blue pants came into the room from another corridor. Taka zoomed in on the keypad as he entered his code and blipped his access card. The tech was lucky, the lock didn't require biometric recognition.

After a few minutes the guards were on their rounds again and Taka heard the steel-enforced door open and close. He snuck out into the hallway again and followed the tech. When he was confident no one else was around, he snuck behind the unsuspecting worker and wrapped his thick arm around the man's throat. The tech soon dropped to the ground. Taka estimated he'd have around fifteen minutes before the worker woke up. He took the access card sticking out from his shirt pocket.

Breaking into the server room was easy with the card and pin code. The temperature in the room was cold and the fans whirred loudly as they pumped out more cool air.

Taka interfaced with one of the mainframes. There were no additional security measures inside the local network. He could easily get the footage by configuring his bio-mask to apply automatic object- and species recognition. Any recordings of the ship in the notice or yautja arriving the same day were transferred to both enforcers' bio-masks as the algorithm started to find matches. They now had access to all the drone footage, inside and outside of Vega for the past twenty hours. 

After returning the access card to the unconscious tech's shirt pocket, he snuck back out the same way he entered with several minutes to spare. The guards were still chatting in the recreational area when he jumped down from the open window and joined Agra on the ground. The latter had already compiled the data.

"There's only one ship that fits the description in the alert. It's parked in the desert." Agra informed enthusiastically. "We have four suspected bad bloods. No five," He added and sent the images to Taka's bio-mask.

"We have competition for the bounty," Taka warned his partner while he lounged against the wall. "Two additional enforcers."

"I know…" Agra replied as he sifted through the footage. "But the good news is that this'll be a short investigation. Only five suspects."

"Yes," Taka chortled. "So we check out the ship first?"

"Obviously." Agra clicked back. "We need to sweep it for evidence and disable the controls to prevent the bad blood from escaping Vega."

Agra and Taka headed back to the huge desert parking lot they previously refrained from using, but as they passed the security check, a familiar character intercepted their path. Big and ugly with his decorative tusk rings and dreads gathered high up on his crest in a thick knot.

"Murk'ha…" Agra sneered before checking Taka's body language to make sure the green enforcer kept his cool.

"Looking for the ship in the notice?" Murk'ha snickered. "You're too late. I already took everything worth having." He patted a sharp boxy bulge in his bag. The smug expression on his face made Taka boil inside.

They glared at their worst rival as he casually pushed past them. Murk'ha looked over his shoulder and gave them an arrogant grin, "I'll buy you losers a consolation drink once I've collected the bounty!"


	3. Chapter 3

Murk'ha had left the bad blood’s ship in shambles. Panels were thrown open. Storage compartments and waste-modules were ransacked and their contents now littered the floor. Wires were torn out and sparking with dangerous electricity. Agra and Taka clicked their mandibles unhappily as they explored what little dregs were left. The ship wouldn’t be moving again without a massive overhaul. Murk’ha had done an exceptional job making sure the ship never took off again. To Agra and Taka’s chagrin, he did an _exceptional_ job tainting any evidence as well. He might as well have torched the place instead of leaving it a miserable skeletal carcass in the desert to be picked over by any party-going scavenger.

It was a compact ship, only a cockpit and a few nondescript holding spaces. There wasn’t even a trophy room onboard. The ship couldn’t have belonged to the yautja for very long. The bad blood hadn’t even performed any successful hunts while using it. If he had, they’d easily spot the moron lugging a prized skull around Vega.

The cockpit was in similar disarray. The main panel was smashed and smeared with a mixture of greasy pawprints. The display flickered frantically a series of indecipherable symbols.

“Murk’ha,” Taka growled, “If I see him again I’m going to...” He wrung his hands, but some drifting scent caught Agra’s scent nodes. He attempted to follow its path but it seemed to permeate from everywhere.

“That smell?” Agra took a large inhale and sneezed. “The entire cockpit smells like….kind of…zesty?”

Taka sniffed loudly. The smell was so familiar, but the memory attached to the scent eluded him. It floated through the air like a ginger flower, but it penetrated his scent nodes with a firm medicinal sharpness. The answer was hiding somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t make it substantial enough to interpret, no matter how many inhales he took.

Agra shook his head to free himself from the scent’s distraction and clicked through some remaining ship controls. The secondary panels flickered between cracks. He huffed, annoyed.

“How are we supposed to find anything in this mess? I tell you, sometimes our natural disposition towards competition really gets in the way of _getting the job done!_ ” he growled between his sharp teeth, “I’m going to do another pass, see if that asshole didn’t put his mitts on every shred of data.”

The second pass didn’t stir up anything more valuable than residual material and a small wooden figurine that had toppled from its perch. Agra held it between his claws and looked it over. It was some kind of carved chimera. It was a quadruped that looked like a dog but had a reptile’s head and seven tails lit with fire. Two yautja stood on either side of it, dwarfed like pups. Agra dropped the figure into his waist pouch for later.

Then, Agra crouched and spun out a small kit from his belt. If he had to scour the place for broken remnants he would. When Taka found him, he was spooning a pinch of sand from the cleaning chamber’s drain into his wrist gauntlet for analysis, but it was normal sand. The chemical makeup was absolutely expected without a single helpful characteristic. 

Taka swiped through what little readings he found in the navigation chamber on his wrist guard. “The ship didn’t belong to a yautja. It’s not even from Vega.”

“As I suspected.” Agra rubbed his lower mandibles together. “Well, it’s from Vega now. It’s not going anywhere.”

“This was a waste of time.” Taka clicked. His annoyance hadn’t left him, but he also seemed distracted. Agra noted he kept cocking his head into the air and breathing deeply. Sometimes Taka was prone to getting lost in his memories. If it wasn’t so helpful, Agra would find it an unfortunate personality tic. Instead, Agra thought it was charming that his partner was a complete _space cadet_.

Agra tucked his kit away. 

“Not a waste,” he stated, “We know exactly one person that has definitely been here before; Murk’ha. What do you say we repay his shrewd investigatory skills?”

Taka shook off whatever memory was plaguing him and slammed a fist into his palm. He beamed evilly at Agra.

“I thought you might,” Agra snickered, “I have a plan.” 

Finding Murk’ha the second time didn’t take even a smidge of Agra’s considerable brainpan. He always had the smell of liquor on him. That sweet, sweat stench of a drunk was similar across all species. And that’s where they found him, at one of the biggest dives in Vega, loaded and bragging. A small posy of younger hunters surrounded him.

Taka puffed up his chest and started to march towards the door when Agra caught his bicep. 

“I have a better idea. It would _behoove_ us if he doesn’t know who ripped him off, don’t you agree?”

"Are you absolutely sure you're a yautja?" Taka asked with a hint of amusement. "Because sometimes I wonder what extra chromosome you're sporting to come up with ideas like that. A yautja doesn't play dirty."

Agra huffed and replied with his most dramatic voice, "Me? Dirty? ...Oh you bet I am. Do you even have to ask?"

Taka chuckled darkly until his dreads shook. 

Agra continued on almost giddily. “I have always found that the perfect distraction is always a beautiful, wanting female. There seems to be plenty of women around asking a fair price.”

Taka’s dreads rattled as he shook his head, unbelieving. Agra was always like this. “We were going to punish him...”

“What’s worse? A few bruises to your body? Or a few bruises to your honor?” Agra attempted to sound very stoic. He laid a fist on his chest.

Taka snorted. The answer was obvious.

It was a repeat of a harmless prank they pulled on a clanmate from their youth. They sought the widest and tallest ooman prostitute they could find and paid her to seduce their very lonesome friend, _Muk_. If she succeeded, they’d pay her double. They’d even get a room for her in a hotel. Obviously they were the _greatest_ of friends.

Unsurprisingly, this worked. Less than thirty minutes later, the woman left arm in arm with the boozed and blundering enforcer, heading for the hotel across the street.

“We enter phase two.” Agra chittered excitedly before splitting from Taka to head for his viewpoint.

"You know, I'm calling him _Muk_ from now on too. Sometimes you're a genius, Agra," Taka snickered in the communicator.

Agra chuckled wickedly. "I just think his bearer named him wrong. He's definitely a _Muk_."

"Guess we were lucky the oomans can't pronounce yautja words. Somehow, I don't think this would've worked out if the hooker called him _a dumbass._ "

"But you don't know how to pronounce their words either," Agra teased.

"Pauk you!" 

The cityscape was different from the roof’s edge. Utopia loomed over most of the city, massive and lit with swinging searchlights. It’s marque spun the building announcing the New Year Party starting only a few hours from now. Crowning its top was an antique satellite dish the size of a small moon. At least, that’s how it appeared as a white half shell, perched like a bird on the giant structure. The city streets pulsed with fiberoptic rainbows and the occasional firework blasting over the skyline. Agra hoped the loud booms didn’t interfere with their plan.

“Taka I’m in place. My view is clear.”

Agra observed the hotel room’s interior. His bio-helmet zoomed in on the scene. 

“What do you see on your end? He is very distracted right now. As he should be. I can sure pick them, huh? It’s a good time to make your move.”

“I’m in place. I’m going in.” Taka keyed the lock. The pad turned green. He cracked the door and slid through on all-fours. Coiled and ready to flee in the dark, he saw Murk’ha’s bag discarded on a chair. He silently snuck towards it, low and arched. 

“Wow for being a crap enforcer, old Muk is really giving it to her,” chimed Agra in Taka’s ear.

Taka stifled a dark chuckle and carefully rummaged in the bag. His fingers touched the box’s edge. He pulled it out, looked it over with his night vision. Some things never changed. Murk’ha was one of them. He still kept all his valuables in the same lucky box. Old-fashioned. Stupid.

He cracked the lid. There wasn’t even an alarm. A familiar smell entered his nose. It made his scales ripple. But he had to focus now. He plucked out the items and relocated them to his belt pouch. Just in time too, Murk’ha was making an array of alarming squealing sounds. Taka didn’t want to stick around for what was next.

He slithered out of the room in the reverse of how he entered and shut the door behind him.

When they met back up on the street, Taka groused. “How exactly did we hurt his honor?”

“I recorded those excellent sounds he was making. I’m sure I’ll find some use for them later. In the event, he...hmm...uncovers our involvement in his robbery. But that’s secondary, what did he have?”

Taka brought the items out of his pouch. The cloying reek from the ship returned as soon as he loosened the flap. It hovered aggressively around a small, unmarked ampul. Agra’s senses couldn’t decide if he loved the smell or wanted it purged from his orifices forever. Taka held onto the ampul while Agra removed the other clue from his hip satchel. It was a broken blade, snapped at the hilt. Agra gingerly gripped the pommel with two talons.

The remains of the blade was made of black meteor stone and the engravings down the red leather handle clearly marked it as a ceremonial dagger. The wear and quality of the blade suggested it was a prized antique at some point in the recent past. It would have been beautiful if it was still functional.

“Oh! Now this has some promise.” Agra snapped back his neck to catch the attention of his partner, but Taka was somewhere else.


	4. Chapter 4

Cin'Taka removed his bio-mask with barely contained impatience. He twisted the ampul in his grasp and brought it closer to his face. As the bright green enforcer took a deep whiff of the vial, his partner's deliberations faded into the periphery of his awareness. He inhaled the fragrance once again and felt it spread inside his mouth cavity. Agra said something about the mission but Taka didn't hear what. The memories of the scent came flooding into the front of his mind.

_He had been young then, recently blooded and ready to take on the world. His chiva siblings thought it would be a good idea to take a shuttle to Vega to get their throats and dicks wet. Cin'Taka had been very enthusiastic about the trip, his first to a different solar system. They had of course checked into Utopia, at that point in time it was the only hotel and casino on the comet. The first evening was spent gambling away a considerable amount of their travel budget playing moxens and rabbonks. Taka had scored a jackpot at the block-stones table, but lost it all again betting on a slug race. Later they got blitzed on fruity cocktails and sugar cane liquor._

_More than a little inebriated, his friend Bhu'ja suggested they take the elevator up to the spa level to make some moves on the ladies frequenting the facility. Said and done, they ended up in separate rooms getting massages that Bhu'ja had charged on his credit account._

_The masseuse taking care of Taka was a forward little female of unknown origin with blue skin and long, golden hair she kept untamed. Her eyes were charcoal black, giving her a mysterious, slightly unsettling look. The dress she was wearing ended mid thigh and barely covered her small breasts, but Taka was too drunk to question those kinds of details. She helped him get comfortable on the rubbery table after assisting him with the removal of his armor. Taka noticed how she was eyeing his form. He puffed up his chest a bit to impress her even more. Being far from relaxed, Taka flinched when she put her slippery, warm hands on his back and started to knead in the oil. The scent was spicy, but fresh. He felt his blood quicken and flood the areas of his body she was rubbing. It took some time to get used to being touched gently, but eventually he let himself relax and follow her instructions._

_The room was dimly lit. Small crimson globes lining the ceiling cast a warm glow over the space. The peaceful quiet was only broken by the rustling of the masseuse's dress. A small fountain in the corner drizzled water. It was a pleasant change from the stressing beats of the bar and the annoyingly repetitive droning streaming from the spa's reception desk. Taka felt comfortably drowsy. He was lying on his back, eyes half-lidded and arms hanging down over the edge of the table. Sleep had almost claimed him when he started to feel a tingling sensation near his sheath. Blood rushed to his groin, quickly followed by the sensation of pressure as his cock leapt against the protective covering. His eyes flew open and he caught the masseuse's hands to make her stop._

_"What are you doing!?" Taka growled at the small female. She froze instantly as her eyes widened in horror._

_"I'm s-sorry!" She squeaked and tried to shy away. Taka was still holding her trapped by her hands. She started apologizing over and over again, "I-I thought... Didn't you? I'm so so sorry!"_

_"This is not how yautja court." Taka was confused. He felt a warmth spreading through his muscles, the oil was doing something to him. "What's this smell?"_

_The masseuse shifted her gaze to a brown bottle on a table near the cot. "It's just gotaella, a medicinal plant." She tried to loosen her hands from his grip again, but it was impossible. "It relieves stress, anxiety, skin blemishes and joint pain, improves circulation."_

_"I'm yautja." Taka scoffed. "I have perfect circulation already."_

_"Please Sir. If you just let me continue, I promise to only touch you decently from now on." She was still nervous. Her voice held a slight tremble._

_Taka found that he was still aroused. In fact, his self-control was slipping. The petals of his sheath had already begun to part as the tip of his rigid member prodded the flimsy seal. He was blooded now, ready to try to claim a female, but this alien was nothing like a yautja female. He could crush her with his weight alone. Taka had always believed his first would be one of his own kind. It would happen fighting, gory and primal, like the ancestors did it. Well, pauk that! As it turned out, he was not a very picky male._

_He let go of her hands._

_"Show me your pussy," he growled._

_The female stared at him in disbelief. She was so startled by his sudden change of mind, her black eyes nearly bulged._

_Once Taka stopped fighting his needs, he let his mating musk release and his cock slipped out effortlessly. It bounced when he stood up briskly. His green shaft pointed slightly to his right. He paraded himself in front of the female while he smeared the massage oil over his dick, enjoying how she stared at him and took deep inhales of his scent as it blended with the gotaella._

_The masseuse tore her eyes from his body and lifted her short, black and white skirt. She was not wearing anything underneath. Her blue tinted skin had a slightly darker hue over her pubic mound. Taka purred approvingly._

_She turned around and placed her hands on the massage table, arching her back to make her rear stick out. Her body language showed her intentions well enough without her having to say a word. Taka stepped in behind her and ran his paw over her curves. Her golden hair shimmered. When he touched it, it was soft as silk. She threw back her head and gave him a toothy grin that he responded to by stretching his mandibles and then clicking together his tusks. The masseuse wiggled her backside closer to his thighs. His gaze drifted to the slit between her legs. From what he could see it looked perfectly compatible with his cock. Without further pleasantries, Taka bent his knees and lined himself with her pussy. The first thrust made him slide between her legs, it felt nice, but he knew the mechanics of mating. With a little guidance from his paw he could angle himself correctly and push the tip inside._

_The friction between their bodies heated the gotaella oil on his dick and made the zesty scent grow even stronger. It mixed with her natural pheromones, making his head spin. He thrust deeper, burying himself inch by inch, stretching her tight hole. She moaned when he pushed the final stretch, hilting his cock flush against the entrance to her hot womb. It felt incredible!_

_Pulling out was easier, they both grunted when he bottomed out again. Every push became easier than the last, he was soon pounding her against the table, holding her hips in place lest she would have been knocked over. She was whimpering and crying for more, spurring him to go rougher._

_"Oh shit! Fuck!"_

_Her wailing pleased Taka who felt like a machine. He could go on forever._

_But he couldn't. It soon became apparent. Inexperienced as he was, he failed to interpret the coiling sensation in his gut that made his abs clench. His nerve endings became livewires, crackling cords that all seemed to snap simultaneously and flush his body in tumultuous rapture. It jetted from him in thick, sticky streams, coating her channel, breeding the alien female._

_It ended as abruptly as it started, Taka remembered pulling out, the faint fragrance of gotaella could still be discerned amidst the musk from their copulation. Spicy. Fresh._

The mind journey Taka went on took mere seconds, but Agra had noticed and was eyeing him curiously.

"I remember this scent," Taka clicked as the green hue on his neck turned a shade darker.

"Oh?" Agra twitched his mandibles and put the dagger back inside Taka's bag.

"This is the same oil they use at the spa in Utopia." Taka explained. 

Agra sucked in a deep breath and took the ampul from his partner. "...So the bad blood has been to Utopia." He narrowed his eyes as the gears in his mind started to turn. "We should go to the party," he deduced immediately. "The bad blood might show up there if there's a connection to the spa."

"Uuum. Yeah. But you forgot one thing." Taka scratched the base of a dread with his talons. "They'll never let me inside. I'm banned for life."

"Yeeeah, right. You never paid for your 'special massage'. I remember," Agra chuckled. 

"I didn't know that! Bhu'ja thought he still had coverage on his account! Quit harping on about it." Taka folded his arms over his chest and huffed.

"Okay, okay," Agra stopped clicking his mandibles in laughter and became serious again. "We can still go to the party." He told his partner with a hint of mischief in his voice. "Just not through the front door…"


	5. Chapter 5

To sprint off a nearby building and plummet onto a sheer exterior without falling to their death was a simple thing for a yautja. Thankfully, Utopia’s security had never considered the possibility of anyone doing something so foolish. Possibly because very few yautjas had ever been banned from the casino. Taka was above average in many regards.

Clawed-hand over clawed-hand, Agra and Taka scaled the casino’s steel facade. A simulated wind blowing from the dome's southern wall whipped their loin cloths and prickled their scales as they made their ascent. It was a long climb up the 87 stories to the rooftop. Despite the threat of death far below him, Agra took the time to think about the clues so far. 

If the bad blood had been to Utopia’s spa, and picked up an ampul of the scent, why would the bad blood return to that comet later? What was special about Vega? He firmly believed in Taka’s significant powers of memory, so the idea that Taka misremembered the smell passed his mind for a single second but was quickly discarded. There must be something more to the finding than Agra could currently sus out. He purred to himself. These clues were like picking up and studying a vague puzzle piece in an equally confusing puzzle.

Then there was the matter of the broken ceremonial dagger. It was clearly of yautja origin. The runes inscribed on the cross guard were the markings depicting the clan “A'zuga-Yatu”. The weapon was so carelessly left it was almost comical. As the culprit’s identifier, the hilt was almost perfect. All Taka and Agra needed to do was weed out who of the five suspects belonged to this clan. A fairly simple task, but since none of them came together as far as the drone footage relayed, they'd have to interrogate them all.

Even though they had two solid clues to go on, the final lead Agra found on the ship couldn’t be ruled out as unimportant. The meaning of the wooden figurine eluded him, but he was certain it had some sort of significance. When the bad blood abandoned the ship, the piece wasn’t valuable enough to take. Instead, it had been forgotten. Still, the fact that it had obviously been procured at some point in time suggested it held some worth, at least in the past, or perhaps it was a trinket left by the ship’s previous owners? Wherever they were in all this. Agra assumed dead or so irrelevant it barely warranted thought.

His paw curled over the roof’s railing and using it as leverage, Agra catapulted himself gracefully onto a quiet corner of a rooftop balcony. He turned back and saw Vega stretch out under him for miles. It was the best view in the city. 

Taka easily vaulted over the glass bannister next to him. Above them, hung the old ailing bottom of the satellite dish.

“See? Very straightforward.” Agra tilted his head. “Literally straight up.”

Taka snorted and shook his head. Agra was insufferable sometimes, and absolutely not funny.

Annoyingly upbeat music streamed from a couple of amplifiers hanging over a lit stage. The New Year's party had already started. Agra slipped past his friend toward the lively crowd. The lights of the glowing pool cast rippling blue shadows on the assorted groups of guests. Already there was a raucous din of party-goers drowning out the band. A crew of fully-dressed avian aliens were flopping around the pool, drenched and laughing loudly. Several antennaed men were passing back and forth a black cigar with their second set of pincers. On every puff, their wings rattled. Sitting on a bar-stool across the dancefloor, another yautja was staring at them.

“Ah, hey, we know her!” Agra ribbed Taka.

The other yautja was already walking over. Her patterning was burgundy speckled with pale brown, but this was the first time they’d seen her without her mask.

“Enforcers Kuz’Agra and Cin’Taka,” she said blandly while swirling the straw in her frothy pink cocktail. “You didn’t come through the doors.”

“Enforcer Varu’tri,” Taka replied with the same tone.

“Perceptive as ever.” Agra craned his neck up at her. Like any yautja female, she was a head over him. “How has your hunting been today?”

She placed the straw between her mandibles and sucked. The dainty drink drained quickly. She was an impressive specimen. Her dreads stopped at her shoulder bluntly. She was covered in scars. Part of her crest was cracked.

“I ran into Murk’ha. He said someone ripped him off. You two wouldn’t know anything about that now would you?”

“Would it matter?” Agra distractedly polished a talon.

“Not to me,” she shrugged. “Happy hunting.” 

They watched her retreating back, which was languid and swaying. Once she was out of ear shot, Taka blurted air.

“Pauk, she’s hot.” 

Agra snapped his head back at him.

“Didn’t you sleep with her already?” 

“Yeah. She was hot then and she’s hot now.”

“Don’t let her distract you,” said Agra archly. 

“Hey!” Taka pushed him. “You were equally distracted!”

Agra grumbled noncommittally. Taka wasn’t wrong. Agra would like to know Varu better.

“We need to visit the spa,” he concluded while heading for the rooftop bar’s exit.

They traveled to the Utopia’s spa level in a clear elevator that bulleted down the interior atrium’s walls. The atrium was a exotic jungle of plants collected from around the galaxy. The centerpiece of the park was a thousand year old sequoia, red, ancient, and bowing slightly at the ceiling.

Agra had never been inside the crown jewel of Vega before. Even he, an experienced and worldly yautja enforcer, was awestruck. Taka had to practically drag him off the elevator.

As they entered the spa’s waiting room, they were greeted by two scantily-dressed avians. They had voices that were so pleasant and harmonic, Agra bristled as if they physically touched him. Their feathers were smoothed down with the same oil from the ampul. The spa was heavy with it like the smell was pumped through the ventilation. Once again, Taka’s power of memory was astounding.

As they entered, two yautja were leaving. Agra recognized them from the security feed Taka got from the drones. He put up his hand to stop their departure.

“Halt. We are Enforcers Kuz’Agra and Cin’Taka. There's a bad blood hiding somewhere here on Vega. They disturbed a chiva—”

“Pauk off!” Growled the younger of the two.

Agra snapped back, “Watch your teeth, pipsqueak!”

“No!” The barely blooded yautja pointed a talon at Agra’s chest and puffed up. “You watch it. You’re the third enforcer to talk to us. I came here to relax, to pauking party. Pauk this bad blood.”

Agra was about to remove the accusing digit at the knuckle bone when the older yautja stepped forward and grabbed the offending finger. He forced it down.

“You idiot,” the elder rasped, “Cut this crap out. I’m Rau’veen. This is Carr’lin. Obviously coming to the spa didn’t calm him down.”

They were an odd pair. The younger was wiry, quick and daring. His scales were a murky brown mixed with a brightest, bee-sting yellow. While he may be blooded, he had clearly not filled out yet into full adult muscle. He was almost a nubile babe, scarless as the day he was birthed. The other was his complete opposite, meaty in a way that could only be made through centuries of near-fatal hunts. His somber gray and forest green patterning was hypnotic. He was worn, tired, but distinguished with age. 

Carr’lin flared his mandibles at Rau’veen but settled into sulking while the adults talked.

“It’s unfortunate timing,” Rau continued, “coming here during New Year's. I'm sure it will be an unnecessarily difficult challenge to catch the offender with all the festivities going on, but surely a worthy hunter will take them down quickly. I have no interest in hunting anymore.” He patted Carr’lin's shoulder with a paw proudly, “Carr’lin here just passed his chiva. He’s ready to take on the world. I’m surprised he hasn’t started hunting the bad blood already.”

Carr’lin jerked the errant mitt off his shoulder. “Enough!”

Then, he barrelled past Taka and Agra toward the elevator bank.

Rau shook his head as if Carr’lin was a pup that had stolen a treat from the highest kitchen shelf. 

“Ah, the arrogance of youth, I miss it. Don’t you?”

“No,” Agra muttered. He was never that hot blooded. The squirt deserved to eat dirt, perhaps even bleed out on it.

Rau nodded sagely despite the denial. “Find us later. He has to relax eventually. Ask us more then.” He slinked off after his charge.

“Wow,” Taka’s puffed posture settled. He wanted to look as intimidating as possible to back up Agra. “That little ingrate has it out for you. Kind of suspicious a hothead like that doesn’t care about this hunt.”

Agra clicked his mandibles and squinted after the departing pair. 

“Isn’t it?”

But Carr’lin was another annoyance taunting him with distraction, and he had other things to do.

After that disparaging interaction, the waiting room of the spa was uncomfortably tranquil. It smelled tantalizingly good for one. That fact alone made it impossible to speak a full sentence without breathing deeply and sighing. Agra wanted to curl up in it, which was not a normal desire. An artificial river flowed through it with blooming lilies. Vapor wafted in thick clouds from the candle lit waterfall.

Agra walked over stepping stones to get to the desk.

The spa receptionist was very...receptive. Agra interrogated her while blinking back the assaulting relaxation and she smiled pleasantly around every answer. He asked about the ampul and the smell first. She responded that it was called _Gotaella_ and was an herb genetically spliced only in Utopia. They didn’t even export it. They wanted a unique scent visitors would remember. This was problematic. Overtime, as their suspects mingled and mixed around Utopia, they would all pick up the zesty smell.

In Agra’s opinion, the scent was therefore unapplicable for the rest of the investigation, but at least, Agra and Taka knew their suspect had visited the spa before they interrupted the chiva.

Second, he asked about how many yautja visit the spa every month. She smiled pleasantly and denied him an answer. They didn’t share visitor data with anyone. It went against their responsibility to the client. Even under threat, she smiled sweetly and offered to call security.

Agra wasn’t going to get any more information from the spa.


	6. Chapter 6

"So what now?" Taka asked as they departed the spa past the beautiful, avian aliens. He eyed them subtly from behind his mask. “We could rough up the concierge for some clan names? Some of our suspects might be staying in the hotel.”

“We’re trying to keep a low profile, Taka. You’re the one that’s banned, remember? We have to avoid getting thrown out.”

Agra plopped down onto a sofa in a waiting area overlooking the atrium. The brightly patterned, leather seats circled an arrangement of structural fish tanks. He watched a tropical fish swimming by in the tank serving as a drinks table while he considered their next move. "Do you still have access to the central server of Vega security?"

"I do… You want us to avoid security but hack it!?” Taka snorted, “Amusing idea, hypocrite, but there are no drones inside Utopia. They have their own security, we're inside a microstate inside an amusement park." Taka was already browsing through what they had access to in his mask.

"Can you do a search of the footage taken outside the hotel?" Agra wondered aloud "Specifically of our new acquaintances from the spa."

Taka picked out the marks that were a match with Rau'veen's and Carr'lin's apparences. Rau'veen had arrived alone several hours earlier. Carr'lin on the other hand was filmed walking inside the hotel together with one of the other suspects. A large, yellow-skinned yautja with white decorations scattered over his brown dreads. There was no other footage of them together, but Taka found something equally interesting. He sent the footage to Agra's mask.

"That's an ooman," Agra clicked, surprised, as he watched the recording. A slight female that couldn't be many years over her teens staggered into Utopia, using the burly yautja as support. His arm was snaked around her waist. Her eyes had a vakant shine to them that made the couple look less than amorous. "This is taken about an hour after the same guy was seen entering the hotel with Carr'lin."

Taka grunted, "She looks drunk… or high. A prostitute?"

"Hard to say…" Agra hummed and studied the clip. "Anything else?"

"No. Nothing interesting. They came alone, entered Utopia, that's it." Taka closed the footage and saved the images for later reference. "So it looks like they're all inside the hotel, celebrating the New Year in decadence. Classy. This is getting us nowhere." He stood up and beckoned Agra to do the same. "Any idea where we should go look for the suspects?"

"There are a lot of floors in this hotel and the New Year's party has events all over the place." Agra said appeasingly. "Pick a venue and we'll continue from there." 

"Casino." Taka's reply came quickly enough to suggest premeditation. Agra chortled at his partner’s hasty response. Together they boarded the open elevator. 

"Casino it is," said Agra as he pushed the button. The elevator rocketed up to the fiftieth floor and chimed pleasantly as the door opened. Before them was the luxurious open space of Casino Utopia. 

The entire venue was surrounded with ground to ceiling windows that overlooked the star-speckled sky and the corona of light surrounding the shooting comet. The floors were covered in a thick-ply goldenrod carpet and the two-story tall columns spaced throughout the gambling hall were the same rich color. The painted ceiling was decorated in tales from antiquity. Taka was sure somewhere in the space he'd find a yautja story, likely Paya’s and Centanu’s ancient romance. He rolled his eyes and focused on the various groups of aliens congregating around assorted games of chance.

"Look," Agra tapped Taka's shoulder and murmured near his ear-hole, "another one of the yautja caught on the parking garage footage."

Taka followed Agra’s gaze to a green speckled huntress with dreads that hung loosely from her spiky crest to her curved buttock.

"Allow me." Taka pushed himself in front of Agra and walked a beeline towards the lady. He didn't notice Agra shake his head behind his back. 

The huntress was standing at a table where several aliens with feline features were laying out multicolored chips on a grid. Taka slid up next to her.

"No thanks." Her piercing honey-colored eyes were steadily focused on the chips. 

"I haven't even said anything," Taka interjected and leaned over the table to obscure her view. 

The female sighed. Her yellow eyes flashed as she narrowed them on Taka’s almost prone form.

"I'm not interested," she huffed while she stepped to the side to clear up her view of the table.

Taka felt a jolt of excitement run down his spine but he soon remembered why he was talking to her. She was a fine looking female though, her belt was littered with rattling skulls and vicious looking claws. A tooth from a therapsid pierced her jaw. 

"Been here long?" He clicked at her and slid back into her view.

The female sighed heavily again but ignored him. She placed five of her own blue chips on top of a green one before the croupiere spun the wheel.

Taka inched his way closer until he was almost touching her. He leaned his face forward towards her back and inhaled deeply. 

Suddenly his temple was slammed down and he pitched forward onto the floor. A heavy foot with sharp talons pressed against his spine. Taka grunted from the painful pressure. He hadn't sensed as much as a particle of gotaella on her. The female hissed and ground her claws into his back.

"I said NO," she chuffed and lifted her foot. "I just came from a very challenging party-hunt and I have no patience for idiots that don't even have the decency to show me their trophy wall first."

Taka scrambled off the floor just as Agra joined them. The olive and red enforcer clicked his mandibles rapidly in amusement. 

"My name is Kuz’Agra and this is Cin’Taka." He pointed a black talon at Taka who grunted while hauling himself up using the game table. A black feline with yellow stripes had just won and was sweeping the chips off the grid. She received a round of applause.

Agra continued as the clapping settled down, "We are enforcers looking for a bad blood. Would you mind showing us your bio-mask confirming your recent whereabouts?"

The female made a throaty sound but clicked open the strap to her gold-plated mask. It fell into her hand and revealed a face littered with scars. Taka had trouble focusing on the task at hand again. She was an absolute babe.

Agra never had that problem and perused the recordings in the mask with hyper-attention. At length, he clicked agreeably. 

"Alright. Looks like you were telling the truth," he offered her back her mask. "Sorry for inconveniencing you." 

She put her paws on her wide hips and snorted at Taka who was eying her shamelessly. Agra had to nearly drag him away from the table.

"That went so well, didn’t it! She was so agreeable!” Agra chortled to his dumbstruck friend as he moved Taka to the other end of the large casino.

“Easy for you to say. I didn’t even get her contact information,” Taka whined while Agra continued to laugh at him.

“Better luck next time. Now that’s one down, four more to go. Are any of our other suspects here?" 

Taka grunted and used his bio-mask to sweep the room. It locked onto a wiry, short yautja with his long dreads gathered into a braid. The male was inside a semi-open simulator, shooting at moving targets at a blinding speed. He had an audience surrounding him that cheered every time he cleared a round. Agra had noticed him too and was already moving towards the simulator. Taka caught up to his side and they joined the crowd.

The shooter had amazing reflexes and aim. If Taka was even half as good at pointing his plasma pistols they'd be swimming in credits from all the bounties they'd collect. 

When the game ended and the shooter entered his information for the highscore, Agra tapped his pauldron with a talon to get his attention. The shooter twisted back his head and gave Agra a scrutinizing look.

"I'm Kuz'Agra, this is Cin'Taka, licensed enforcers." Agra motioned toward Taka while the other male stepped out from the simulator. Agra straightened his back to make him look even more taller than he already was.

"Name's Ast'r," the shooter rasped and nodded to both enforcers." Professional gunman and show artist. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." 

Taka nodded back and let Agra handle the interrogation. 

"We're looking for a bad blood—," Agra began.

The little male interrupted him with a raised hand and shook his head. "I know. I got the notice as well. But don't worry. These days I make more money from doing shows than killing bad bloods," his gravelly voice rolled the words along.

Agra tapped his mandibles on his mouth and tried to remember where he heard the name Ast'r before. 

"I was an enforcer back in the day," Ast’r contributed mid-thought. 

"You're Ast'r the Sniper!" said Agra impressed while Taka clicked his mandibles in regard. Ast'r the Sniper was a legendary enforcer. He could hit a target from hundreds of yards away. 

"That's right." The little male said humbly and gave Agra his card. It was a chip with a holographic image that promoted his show at the battle arena.

“You're kept busy,” Agra commented while cross referencing his card with the performance schedule that was sent to their masks upon arrival. “It seems you have at least two performances here every day.”

Ast'r nodded enthusiastically. His thick braid flopped against his back. 

"Yes indeed," he chuckled. "I've been stuck on this rock the past year. Fat cats upstairs can't get enough of me so they booked me two years ahead, evey pauk-de morning and night."

Agra narrowed his eyes and replayed the drone footage in his visor. 

"So you haven't been off Vega in a year?" He paused the video showing Ast'r moving through the parking lot. "Then how come I have pictures of you coming from the parking lot earlier this morning."

Ast’r clicked his mandibles and chittered amusedly, "I was just moving my shuttle. See. There is a limit to how long you're allowed to park in one spot in the desert lot." He tapped his crest with a talon and said shrewdly, "I'm not paying for permanent parking underground. The rich bastards running this casino don't even give old champions like me a discount!"

For a moment, Agra wondered if the sniper was related to Taka in any way, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. The reasoning seemed sound to him, but he still needed to rule out the gunman's involvement in the chiva.

"Would you mind giving us an account of your whereabouts from yesterday and onward?"

Ast'r nodded slowly and tapped his tusks together. His amber eyes were unwaveringly focused on Agra's mask, normally a sign the interrogated wasn't being entirely truthful.

"I had a show in the morning and one in the evening, same as every day the past year," Ast'r clicked disgruntled.

Agra gave him a thorough look-over while contemplating his explanation. As the gunman said, his show was advertised as twice a day, every day at Utopia's famous battle arena. It would've been impossible for him to travel to the chiva planet and back between shows. Still, Agra wasn't entirely convinced of the male's innocence, but the crowd of fans gathered closer, listening to the conversation attentively. They could always find him again if the other suspects turned out to be dead ends.

The enforcers saluted the old gunman and left him to his fans. The audience were excitedly urging Ast'r to do another bout in the simulator. Agra and Taka stepped onto the elevator as the game played its starting scene and Ast'r spun the pistol in his paw, placed his index finger over the trigger and started shooting.

"So that covers most of them. We've met everyone except one. Where to now?" Taka asked.

"Let's go find the squirt and the geezer," Agra chirped and pressed the button to the next floor on the elevator panel. "I have a feeling we aren't done with those two," he said mysteriously. 

The elevator doors started to close while Agra settled back against one of the walls, contemplating the information they acquired so far.


	7. Chapter 7

A clawed foot jammed into the closing doors. The elevator made an upset sound and reopened. A yellow yautja calmly crowded into the chamber. He had decorated his dread clasps with small finger bones. They clattered as he settled into the middle of the elevator. Agra immediately recognized him as the yautja dragging the ooman girl in the footage from earlier. Taka and Agra shuffled uncomfortably into the separate corners to help him fit. With everyone adjusted, the doors closed. The tight space began to smell like a familiar spicy herb. Taka inhaled audibly and froze against the wall. The atmosphere in the small compartment turned from uncomfortable to directly hostile. The newcomer stiffened but kept his back turned toward the enforcers.

Agra, from his crammed recess, coughed to get the larger yautja’s attention. “Hunter, we are enforcers looking for the—.”

“Sorry boys, won’t be long.” 

The stranger hit the emergency stop on the door’s control panel. Agra and Taka barely had time to react before two muscular arms caught their necks in a chokehold. 

“Listen to me. I’m not the yautja you are looking for,” the yellow yautja rumbled. “If you come sniffing around my affairs, you’re going to get a lot more in the face than my scent, you hear me?”

Taka growled at him, and the attacking yautja’s arms tightened. The growl tapered off to a wheeze as Taka’s airway was squeezed shut.

“Sounds like you aren’t listening to me, Cin’Taka. So I’ll ask your second half. Kuz’Agra, I’m not a suspect in your investigation. Whatever you believe, whatever you saw, drop it. This is a courtesy call, but if I see you again, I’m taking your dreads with a blunt knife. Do you understand?”

Agra croaked.

“I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.” The mystery yautja unpressed the emergency button. The elevator lurched into motion. As they waited for the next floor, he hummed along to the elevator jingle. When the doors opened and he let the pair go, both Taka and Agra gasped for breath.

When they recovered enough to look up, the yautja was gone. A stream of new Utopia patrons bustled into the elevator.

Agra pushed through the crowd while dragging Taka out of the elevator by the breastplate. Outside, he easily scanned above the crowd’s heads, but the yautja was gone. Agra tapped his wrist console instead. A tiny indicator light blinked on.

Taka clicked his mandibles disgustedly when he was unable to find the bulky male in the crowd. It was as if he simply disappeared, but cloaking technology didn’t work in Utopia, which meant he was very fast for someone so large.

“What the pauk!? Who the pauk!?” Taka hissed, “What the pauk just happened?!” 

“We were threatened, Taka. As if that’s a first. Let me see the hilt again.”

Taka huffed and passed him the hilt. It was the same as before, but Agra knew he was missing something. He had a feeling in his gut.

“Hmph, _if you come sniffing in my affairs_ ,” Taka mocked. “When I see that guy again the last thing I’m going to be doing is sniffing.”

“But he did smell like gotaella,” Agra stated as he examined the broken weapon delicately in his palm, “So that’s interesting, hmm? If he really is innocent, then he doesn’t need to worry, now does he? If he’s not, we’ll cross paths again. I attached a tracking node to him.” Agra chittered happily and tapped the display on his wrist. The light was seen moving through a floor map of Utopia.

Taka huffed once more, a sound like an annoyed sneeze.

“We should go after him now! I want payback!” Taka groused.

“There will be time. Let him believe he foiled us.” Agra continued to fiddle with the broken dagger. He brought it closer to his mask as if examining it under a microscope. “Now focus. Which clan was hosting the disturbed chiva?”

“Vi'zada-ya'za,” Taka replied from memory.

“Who is Vi'zada-ya'za’s clan warring with?”

“—A'zuga-Yatu.” Taka glanced down at the runes on the hilt, “Oh.”

“Oh yes.” Agra checked the intraweb for all the scheduled chivas in the last month. A’zuga-Yatu had their bloodening trial a few days before the ruined Vi'zada-ya'za’s. “A’zuga-Yatu just had a chiva, and which of our suspects just passed their chiva?”

Taka chittered, “Carr’lin.”

“Your instincts are always impressive, Taka. We need to find him more than ever. Now if you were a brash idiot, possibly hiding out from your bad decisions and oncoming death, where would you be?”

“Definitely a strip club,” Taka said almost immediately.

Agra snorted and shook his head. “I’m sure you remember the way from your time as a recently blooded.”

Taka punched Agra in the shoulder and moved off. Agra followed.

The casino had many strip clubs, each one more stylized than the next. The third one they visited had a curved-glass ceiling underneath an aquarium. Even in the club’s lobby, alien sea creatures swum above Taka and Agra. The emanating light showered them in calming blue, but the soothing effect was counterbalanced with the rapidly beating bass accompanying the dancers The glass vibrated in an uncomfortable baritone from an overworked speaker. 

The club was a long, tunnel of glass. Sharks swam lazily over the onstage dancers. Scores of aliens drooled at their heels, tossing them different galactic currency. In the back corner, even in the dim aquatic light, Agra spotted the outline of two yautja hunters. 

Agra noted several bouncers around the room. He’d have to keep the next interaction as friendly as possible. He jostled Taka and headed over to the table.

Carr’lin tensed as he approached.

“Hunters,” Agra bowed forward slightly, “can we join you?”

“Of course, Enforcers,” Rau’veen replied pleasantly.

Carr’lin continued to bristle as Taka and Agra sat. He poked in a snack-plate filled with long, chitin-covered seafood and refused to return the greeting.

With his most amenable voice, Agra purred, " This won't take long. A few questions and we'll leave you to enjoy the rest of the evening."

Rau nodded somberly. He pushed the food to the center of the table, inviting the enforcers to help themselves.

“Please, eat however much you like," Rau clicked. "We’re leaving in thirty anyway to head to the party’s kickoff."

Taka picked the fattest looking leg from the plate. When Carr'lin glanced over, he demonstratively broke the appendage in two with a loud crack. He placed the pieces back on the dish. Carr'lin's eyes followed his paws minutely.

“Where does it start anyway?” Agra said conversationally. Carr'lin moved his gaze from Taka's talons and stared at him with a sullen expression on his face.

“On the roof. Big fireworks show. Didn’t you read the brochure?” Carr’lin’s voice was icy but he refocused back on the stage.

Agra settled back and watched a particularly-talented dancer scale the pole almost to the ceiling. When she slid back down, she landed in a nimble split. If Agra and Taka weren’t working, they could lose many hours here.

“How do you two know each other?” Agra asked Rau. Taka wouldn’t be much use in here, too many distractions. His mask was steadily fixed on the stripper.

“We met here today. But he’s the pup of my brother’s sister. I recognized her blood in him immediately. She was as fiery as he is.” He leaned towards Agra at this point and spoke quietly into his ear-hole. “Some extra guidance won’t hurt him either. He needs it.”

Carr’lin was none-the-wiser, now focusing sourly on the dancers in front of him.

“What clan do you belong to?” Agra kept his voice pleasant.

“I’m Septa-Raj’ji. He’s A’zuga-Yatu. And you?”

Agra almost missed the question with the heightening adrenaline suddenly surging through his body. He had to temper down the excited feeling that always precedes executing a bad blood. The runt’s clan name wasn’t an absolute confirmation.

“We are Mada-Vi'rya,” he said distractedly. “Can I interest you two in a private show? I just got here after all, and with thirty minutes to go, I’d like to get the most bang for my buck.”

Carr’lin twisted back in his seat. His suspicion was evident, but it would be rude to object. He was already under Taka's scrutiny.

“That’s very generous of you,” Rau was equally curious and surprised. “We accept.”

Taka glanced at Agra. Agra nodded back. Their bond was built on years of completed hunts. Taka knew exactly what Agra was attempting to do. He was trying to find a quiet place to finish the job.

The private room was round and faced with mirrors. In the center was a stage, while the surrounding seating were velvet mounds that rolled out of the floor like landscaping features. The only exits were the doors they entered through and the paper partitions that separated this room from wherever the dancers came from.

Agra sat quietly, with one ankle propped on his thigh, next to Carr’lin, “Hey blooded, can you help me identify something?” He drew out the ruined dagger like it was a secret.

Carr’lin went rigid. “Where’d you get that?”

“So you recognize it?”

Carr’lin wasn’t listening. He had grabbed both Agra’s shoulders and growled angrily. “Where’d you get that?!” 

“In the bad blood’s ship,” Agra stated very clearly. 

Carr’lin immediately dropped him. Agra could smell his sudden panic. “How did it get—?” 

There was a shredding sound, and the paper screen blocking the dancers’ entrance was ripped to pieces. Murk’ha launched into the room armed with two wrist blades. They plunged into the mound Carr’lin had just occupied. The young yautja had dodged the blades by rolling to the side.

While Carr’lin stood to jet away, Murk’ha lept over the empty backrest. His blade passed easily through Carr’lin’s unguarded neck, severing his head. While Carr’lin had proven himself against the kainde amedha, he was no match for an experienced yautja enforcer. The body stood dumbly for a breath before collapsing. Murk’ha went to fetch the head.

Rau’veen staggered over to the headless corpse of his nephew.

“What did he do?” He said desperately sharp.

Murk’ha wiped the green blood off his mask and cleaned his blades on his thigh. “He interfered with a chiva to mess with a rival clan. Got the whole thing recorded thanks to Agra here.”

Agra stiffened.

“Clever Agra. Very clever! But I’m clever-er,” Murk’ha teased, “Rip me off why don’t you? I put tracers on all the c’jit I find.” 

Agra’s eyes flew wide and he inspected the hilt with a scouring focus. One of the precious stones was a tracking beacon. Agra figured it was probably fitted with speech recording capabilities. He berated himself for being so stupid.

“I can’t believe it.” Rau hung his head.

Murk’ha kept laughing.

“Taka,” Agra’s spoke chillingly, “Let’s go.”

Taka nodded sharply. They left just as the strippers entered the room. Their screams could be heard all the way to the strip club’s lobby and out into Utopia’s hallway. Moments after, they were drowned out by the loud booms of the firework show.

New Year’s had officially begun.


	8. Chapter 8

The fireworks display had gone on for the better part of an hour. The roof of the Utopia was packed with giddy guests ingesting bright, fizzy cocktails while staring mesmerized at the sky as it exploded in every conceivable color. It was the perfect spot to disappear for a while and to blend in with the crowd.

Agra and Taka sat in silence at the bar. They had taken off their masks and hung them on their belts for convenience. Taka was sulking. He drained glass after glass of Utopia's special fruity punch that had more of a kick than its taste suggested. Agra sipped on a shot of cactus liquor while deep in thought. Taka knew his partner was probably going over their every step since they entered Vega in his head. What were the defining moments of their failure? How could they have acted differently? Retrospection was an important part of improvement, at least that was what Agra used to say after a mission, even a failed one. He didn’t say that now. Currently, Taka was too angry to care. He was itching to take off but they needed to stay until hotel security had simmered down enough for them to leave without raising suspicion. Murk'ha had left them in quite the pile of cjit. 

While Taka drowned their failure in booze, a burgundy arm suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision, waving at the bartender for service. He turned his head to the side and was faced with a familiar shoulder plate. Varu'tri’s.

She looked down at him and raised the cocktail that was put on the table in front of her. 

"Better luck next time," she toasted them before taking a dainty sip, "to all of us."

Taka tilted his glass slightly before draining it in a quick sweep. Varu ordered another round, offering a glass each to Agra and Taka. They emptied their shots in unison. Neither said a word. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife. Varu was about to buy them more drinks, but Agra held out his credit-chip before she could pay the order.

"You just lost a paycheck too. Let me buy a round this time." Agra said graciously. The bartender scanned his chip and served them another three glasses. 

Varu clicked her mandibles as thanks before moving her gaze to Taka. He was staring absentmindedly into his already empty shot glass. When he felt her eyes on him, he glanced up at her. She spread her mandibles in a smile. He chuckled nervously before standing up abruptly to leave. The room spun for a second, so he gripped the bar’s edge to stabilize himself. Taka was obviously more affected by the punch than he had first thought.

Varu touched his arm firmly anyway. She tilted her head to the side, making her short, black dreads rustle. 

"Are you okay?"

Taka growled low in his throat but made no effort to shake loose from her grip. He was conflicted about her. Varu was sexy as pauk, but he also knew she couldn't be trusted. The last time he had enjoyed her company she had locked him in a room and taken the bounty herself. Competition between enforcers was always fierce because they were after a single bounty. Being tricked by another professional wasn't anything personal. At least not more personal than being screwed by the female one just screwed. Taka narrowed his eyes suspiciously and tried to figure out what she was up to.

"Cin'..Taka.." Varu purred melodically and scraped a sharp talon along his neck. It affected him more than he liked to admit. "I know how to release some of the frustration over losing to that blockhead." 

Agra stirred in his seat and watched them intently. This exchange peaked his interest.

Varu moved closer into Taka's personal space and brushed her hip against his. Pauk she smelled good. Not a trace of perfume, just pure female musk. Taka felt his cock take a leap inside his sheath.

The female enforcer tilted her head and met Agra's gaze. 

"You too, brains," she cooed and angled her hips discreetly. "You don't have a problem sharing do you? Partners in all?"

Taka stiffened, perhaps even sobered up a little. Such a bold question was hard to ignore. Every fibre in his body craved accepting, but the tiny voice in his head warned him it was a bad idea. If he told Agra about Varu’s previous betrayal, his friend would probably turn down her offer. Taka didn't want that. 

After one last look at Varu's awe-inspiring body his mind was made up. Taka gave Agra a quick glance and nodded. His partner shrugged and stood up to join them. When Agra donned his bio-mask, Taka put his on too. It was careless to go mask-less, especially when inebriated.

The three enforcers took the elevator down to the floor Varu was staying on. Her room was in the west side of the building with a view of the massive amusement park. A large panorama window at the end of the hall framed the cityscape and the black of space beyond the comet’s edge. Taka drunkenly stared at the view as Varu unlocked her door. A huge ferris wheel, at least twenty stories high, haloed the volcanic themed park. His eyes followed the magma-red rollercoaster that snaked its way throughout the entire venue. The tracks ran close enough to the Utopia to enable him to see the carts. Using his bio-mask, Taka could magnify the faces of the people riding them, arms up and screaming. His stomach churned a bit as a cart rushed through a loop outside the window. 

Agra grabbed his bicep and pulled him into the room. Varu dimmed the lights as he closed the door behind them. She turned around teasingly slow until they were face to face once again. Her coloring looked even richer in the soft shadows. 

"Take it easy will you? This room is a rental," Varu purred and regarded the males with half-lidded eyes. "Next time we should do this at my house, but until then, try not to wreck the room." She clicked her mandibles and began to remove her armour in a suggestive, single-buckle-at-a-time strip tease.

"I don't need to wreck the room to wreck you," Taka growled and pulled her loincloth to bring her closer. Varu gave another clicking laugh and began to stroke Taka's dreads as he started to remove her pauldrons.

Agra was leaning on the door frame watching their interaction intently. His breathing picked up a bit as Varu was exposed, piece by piece.

Taka proceeded to help with her gauntlets and finally he unclasped her loincloth. It fell to the floor with a metallic clatter. Varu stepped back and stretched her muscles.

Both males followed her with their eyes as she gracefully flexed and puffed up in front of them. Her dreads arced, framing her face beautifully. 

"So…" she started and eyed them back hungrily. "Have you boys decided who will start? Or do I get twice the attention right away, hm?"

Taka tried to make eye contact with Agra but his partner was too focused on the female in front of him. By the looks of his tented loincloth, Agra clearly needed to unwind. Taka took a few steps back to lounge against one of the patterned walls. 

"You can be first old friend. I already know what I'm in for," he chittered cheerfully. 

Even if it meant he had to wait for his turn, a part of him was excited over Varu's suggestion to share her. He'd seen others mate before but when he thought about it, never Agra. His friend often chose work over pleasure. Agra's eagerness for Varu was a refreshing change from his usual disinterest in women. Even if Taka had never shared a female before, he had no problem to do so with his friend, and if she got pregnant there would be no question who seeded her. Taka had never sired any pups with any female but he still enjoyed the mating act. He would make Varu scream his name repeatedly until she passed out from orgasmic exhaustion.

Arga didn't need to be told twice. He stripped himself of everything but his bio-mask. Varu slid in front of him and grabbed his bound tresses. He shivered from his toes to his crest in response. She tapped at his mask.

"Aren't you taking this off?" She tilted her head and gave him an amused expression. 

Agra relented quietly and unclasped the hooks under his chin. The mask off-gassed, and he placed it on her nightstand.

Varu raked her claws up his forearms. Without his mask, Agra was bright-eyed and hungry-looking. 

"Get on with it, brains, or I'll have to ravage you," she hissed and gave him a slight push against the bed frame. 

Taka chittered darkly from his corner. Varu was a handful, but also the kind of female that was worth a lot of hardship.

Agra growled and moved forward with lightning speed. He pushed into her chest and hassled her backward until her hindquarters hit a large wooden wardrobe. Varu exhaled heavily. Her scarred, brown-speckled arms wrapped around his back.

The scent of musk thickened the air. Varu responded by relaxing into the olive and red enforcer's rough embrace and releasing more of her own scent. Taka could smell every particle. It attacked his senses. What was he thinking, letting Agra start!? His own erection was already pleading with him to take the female. When Agra lifted her leg and thrust inside her, the ghost feeling of her clenching, hot cunt was beckoning him.

Agra pounded her savagely against the wardrobe. It was luckily made of impervious alien wood, otherwise it would have splinted. Varu whimpered and gasped everytime Agra drove her against the heavy piece of furniture. He lifted both of her thighs to reach deeper. Varu moaned and sunk her talons into his back. Fluorescent green blood seeped between her claws.

Taka felt his own heartbeat race. He removed his bio-mask to get air. It didn't help. He was only bombarded with more of their combined sexual essence. Standing aside and waiting patiently was impossible, but he wasn't going to be that ‘asshole’ and challenge his friend while mating. He simply needed to occupy himself with something while he waited for his turn. 

Agra was probably too lost in the throes of passion to see him move closer. Taka skirted them carefully to avoid becoming the target of either's mating rage. He snuck up next to Varu and inhaled deeply. His cock throbbed. Fluid dripped from the pointed tip while his body trembled with restraint. 

Varu fell forward over Agra's shoulder. His friend was really giving it to her. Taka noted he would have to remind Agra for the same level of energy next time they sparred. The broad crack on Varu's crest glowed bright against her dark scales. She looked like a warrior queen, snorting and panting with her mandibles clamped over Agra's shoulder. She was close to her first release that night. 

Taka took one of her short dreads in his hand and rubbed it between his fingers. She was stuttering out a low purr. Grabbed by a sudden whim, Taka leaned in and sucked the tip into his mouth. It was silky-smooth, warm, and pulsing. He tongued it gently and took care not to bite it too roughly. 

Varu's breaths were coming in short, hot puffs. She seemed unaware of his doings, or in any case not bothered by it. Taka sucked in the whole length of her strand. He grazed it with his sharp teeth as Varu started to shake and moan. He spit it out quickly as Varu's climax washed over her. She wasn't an overly violent female but this was one of those situations where it was wise to stand back.

Agra was pushing frantically inside her, making the wardrobe protest loudly. Taka waited impatiently for his friend to finish. Thank Paya it seemed like it would be his turn any moment now. His own erection was starting to get painful.


	9. Chapter 9

Agra’s eyes were clenched shut. Varu’s tusks buried deep in his neck felt incredible. Her tongue lapped at his fractured scales. He could feel the coursing sensation of his blood being drawn from the punctures. His talons curled deeper into her thigh muscles, parting her hips wider. He was hypnotized by the slapping sound of his length entering her slick chasm. The internal muscles of her canal gripped him back like a pumping fist. He purred against her neck.

It was far too long since he claimed a female. Probably cycles. He would be embarrassed to admit it aloud, but maybe Taka was keeping count. In the future, Agra would have to remember not to wait this long again. Bedding one wasn’t hard, but they never appeared when he was in the right mood. There must be something about Vega that made him aroused. Perhaps it was that smell, gotaella. It was getting ground into his scent buds. He imagined he’d never get rid of it after this.

Thankfully, around him, the only smell he scented was their mixing musk.

Varu’s wet, internal warmth was intoxicating wrapped around his thrusting cock. The head of it was striking the far end of her passage. The tightness was increasing, making him throb and his head swim. He was going to break the pauk-de wardrobe. From the corner of his eyes, he caught Taka slipping in next to Varu and sucking a dread into his mouth. Varu purred, which sent strong vibrations into his lower abdomen. His mating instinct raged abruptly but he redoubled his efforts in forcing into the female before him. He was charged alight with her guttural sounds. 

The flared end of his cock was parting her internal gateway. He was moments from wedging into her womb. She was shuddering on the inside, trying to resist the shattering-feeling associated with breaching past her cervix. With animalistic-fervor, Agra couldn’t allow her to prevent his onslaught. Agra forced past her barrier and his cock head was trapped, lodged within her, as she tightened around him, vice-like. 

Paya, she was cumming. Her increased slickness made it possible to pull almost all the way out and plow back into her. If he didn’t release his seed soon, he was going to die from the need to expel it. The swelling sensation in his gut was almost impossible to hold back.

But his mind kept slipping back to Carr’lin’s severed head. His vacant eyes staring back into Agra's, accusingly.

Pauk! Shake it off. 

Varu was beautiful, and quivering with afterglow, and tight, and digging a fantastic set of mandibles into his skin. Oh right. Mandibles. He buried his own into the meat of her shoulder. Her blood was electric. The tangy taste flooded his mouth, leaving it sticky and choked. He sucked more out of her as if parched for it. With a desperate thrust, he lodged his shaft deeply back into her womb, and finally jetted his load. The relief dredged him. He softened quickly inside of her.

No words could come to mind other than a demur thanks, which was inappropriate. The close scales-on-scales contact suddenly felt awkward. He wanted space, but Varu was hanging listlessly on his chest. If he backed off, she risked falling on the floor like a bag of bones. As Agra's eyes slowly flickered open he could see his friend watching them with a feverish expression on his face. The smell of Taka’s unsatiated arousal clogged the air, demanding his attention. Agra met his gaze and gave Taka a slight nod. After tightening his hands on Varu's hardened legs, he lifted her effortlessly away from the wardrobe toward the meticulously-tucked bedspread. The bed groaned as they rolled out together over the blankets. 

Agra closed his eyes and sighed heavily in relaxation, but barely got his arm back from under Varu, when Taka pounced. Agra had observed others mating before. It was common that yautja mated around others. Just another part of the life and death cycle blended into yautja everyday practice. However, this was a first with Taka. They’d known each other for most of their lives and somehow had missed ever being present when the other bred. 

Knowing Taka, he would probably milk the experience of everything it was worth. He was an absolute sucker for the pleasure of things. Agra settled his breathing while the bed began to bob with the rhythm of rocking hips. When he had calmed his heartbeats, he opened his eyes and propped himself back up.

Taka had dragged Varu off the edge of the bed. Her legs were spread wide and he was taking her from behind. His talons gouging lines in over the muscular-ridge rounding her wide hips. He was stretched long over her to thread her tresses through his jaw. He looked entranced, rolling deeply into her in long, slow waves.

Apparently, in the bedroom, they became opposite versions of themselves. Taka was calm and collected. Agra was a distracted male quick to prove dominance. This realization bothered Agra. He hoped there was something he could learn from this shared coupling. 

Varu was growling and meeting Taka’s thrusts forward with more insistence. Agra could see the base of Taka’s green erection snapping into her around the curve of her rump. His brain seemed to hiccup on this motion. He hung staring, transfixed. After a second, he shook it off.

He was either overthinking or he was still burning off the liquor. Taka was doing a good job. Agra should let the male have his pleasures as he finds them instead of gawking at him like an unblooded. 

He settled back down on the bed and smelled their combined scents. It was easy to differentiate which smell came from which yautja. Then he sought the combinations. Taka’s blend with Varu was increasing thickly and was impossible to ignore. She was practically mewing Taka’s name at this point. Agra snorted, prideful of his friend.

Then he sought his dwindling, aging combination from when he spent inside Varu. It lingered pleasantly.

But past that wafting scent of male yautja taking female yautja, there was a ghostly mixture, barely blending at all. Agra absently chased it. He couldn’t place it for some time. Seeking the root of this smell was a lazy distraction.

The musk belonged to Taka, yes, and it was mixed with…

Agra’s genital petals parted for his burgeoning arousal.

He was overthinking, definitely. There was nothing abnormal about enjoying the smell of Taka and his musk. It wasn’t exciting at all. He was hopeful that when Taka was done he could have Varu again. If Taka left her awake and functional, that is. She was going to be hoarse in the morning after these long minutes of guttural rasping.

The rest of the night perished in a tangle of blankets and the constant arousal of three desperate creatures boning away in an astral pleasure palace. At some point, the three of them collapsed into exhaustion and drifted into sleep. 

Agra winced at the bright starlight striking his face. Vega must be slowly rotating in orbit of the mother star since he didn’t remember this brightness cresting through the window last night. He was groggier than a normal morning. Heavy blankets draped over him, and he was sprawled over someone else’s body. They smelled good. Agra could try to connect the broken pieces of his memory about last night, but given the state of his head, he preferred to nuzzle into whoever’s neck this was.

“Hehe, Varu, interested in more?” Came the dreary response.

Agra catapulted off the bed and onto the floor.

Taka must still be asleep. He grumbled again and rolled over. Agra marginally relaxed. He took a moment to glance around the disheveled room. Nothing was broken, per se, but the room looked as ravaged as Agra felt. The wardrobe still stood despite Agra’s best efforts, but its doors were hanging lopsided now, and the bed was sprayed with drying seed. It glistened in the light. But more importantly, Agra focused, Varu’tri was gone, and so were Agra’s and Taka’s masks. All of their clues were stolen while they dozed like easily-sexed beta males. Varu had double-crossed them. 

Agra hissed through his mandibles. As if last night could have gotten any worse. First, the loss of their hunt to Muk, second the death of Carr’lin, and finally this? He shook Taka awake, forgetting his earlier relief that the other male was still sleeping. 

“Taka, wake the pauk up!”

Taka blearily woke. “I’m up. I’m up! Stop pauk-de shaking me.”

“Varu’tri took everything!”

Taka snapped into full-awareness in a microsecond. “She what?! Why?”

This was an excellent question, Agra tapped his toe talon. “I don’t think Carr’lin was the bad blood.”

Taka glared at him seriously. Agra’s accusation was dangerous.

“I can’t explain it yet,” Agra rambled, “but there wasn’t adequate proof that he disturbed that blooding ceremony. Yes, it was very convenient but too convenient, and now this? Why would Varu steal our masks? The case was finished. She must know something we don’t or perhaps...” She doesn’t want us to find something out. Now, why would she want that? Agra continued in his own mind. _Now_ these were dangerous accusations.

“It’s too early for this,” Taka likely had the same hangover Agra did, if not worse.

“It is not too early for this, c’jithead. We need to find Varu!” Agra started to put back on his loincloth and grieves, his breastplate. He threw Taka’s armor at him as he found it on the floor. Each piece landed heavily on Taka’s gut. “Get up!”


	10. Chapter 10

Even though Taka and Agra didn’t dawdle in Varu’s hotel room, it was already late in the morning when they finally left. They entered the elevator at the same moment their stomachs collectively grumbled. Their goal was the food court level to visit one of the hotel’s many restaurants. Maybe with some meat in their bellies, their brains could start churning out answers again, instead of stupid questions.

Taka's head was throbbing like he was bludgeoned unconscious with a blunt object sometime last night and the bright lights in the ceiling weren’t helping his irritated, wincing eyes. He would throw Varu into a wall when they found her, and hopefully before she recovered to stand, unleash the rest of his disappointment. Stealing their bio-masks was a new low, even for her. He cursed himself for being weak and letting himself get fooled again. Her interest in them had seemed genuine the previous night. A female doesn't fake those kinds of sounds. At least she better not have!

The elevator binged shrilly as the door slid open on a conversation din. The food court was an enormous hall lined with food vendors peddling all kinds of dishes originating from every corner of the galaxy. The huge windows on the far end were covered with tinged film, shading the hall from the star’s bright rays. Almost all of the tables were occupied by rowdy, still intoxicated aliens that had stayed awake all night. Some of the guests slumped drearily over their meals, feeling clearly as hungover as Taka. A congregation of aliens hovered around the holographic display in the center of the room showing a rerun of an old wrestling match. Taka's stomach growled when the assorted smells from the stalls caressed his palate. It was impossible not to salivate even while his head felt like it was made of lead. 

"Let's go through the facts before you start stuffing your face," Agra proposed and pushed Taka down into a luxe dining chair 

Taka gave the food stalls another longing look as Agra started to pace back and forth with his arms behind his back. 

"I have a feeling we were wrong about Carr'lin's involvement," he muttered out loud while his mandibles worked compulsively. "Yes, he recognized the dagger from the ship _and_ his clan is in a feud with the chiva clan..." 

Agra stopped and shook his head slowly. "Something about this doesn't feel right." He turned to look at Taka, who was eyeing him curiously. Agra continued undaunted, "Carr'lin didn't even try to convince us he was innocent."

"That doesn't automatically rule him out," Taka argued. "A brash young blood fits the profile. He was the kind of yautja who wouldn’t want the clan leader's son to pass the chiva."

"And what about Varu'tri?" Agra bore his eyes into Taka's. "What do you know about her?"

Taka’s expression changed from curious to affronted. He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. "I hardly know anything. Except she's been an enforcer as long as you and I, and she's from the R'ju-kunta clan. They keep mostly to themselves. They're neutral."

"I didn't say I thought she was the one we were hunting," Agra backpedaled. "But I don't like coincidences." 

He fell silent and quirked an eyebrow at Taka, waiting for his contribution.

"There is a reason Varu stole our masks," Taka offered Agra, who nodded at him to continue. "We had something she wanted…" 

"Drone footage!" Agra filled in excitedly. "She wanted our intel. Or the drones filmed something she didn't want us to see."

Taka clicked his mandibles and nodded. "One of the remaining suspects is definitively the bad blood," he stood up quickly and said, "we find them, we find Varu."

"Yes," Agra clicked.

"But first I'm buying a couple, three...no definitely seven of those marinated meat skewers." Taka was already over at the vendor mentally, his body just had to move the 20-25 paces to get there. He stumbled out of the creaking chair and moved like a hobbled zombie toward the stall. Agra snorted and followed.

Taka was so focused on the delicious scent he didn't notice what was happening around him until a loud, metal clank distracted him off his set course. The windows that previously had been veiled with shades, were now covered in solid metal. The holographic screen in the center of the space switched images, drawing the attention of the rest of the aliens. The group who had been chatting with loud voices turned their faces towards the image and fell silent.

The monitor started to display a holographic head shot of a young ooman girl. ‘Missing’ blared in red above her pleasant, soft-lipped face. The enforcers stopped and looked at each other. It was the same girl they saw in the drone footage. The one being hassled into the hotel by the asshole yautja that threatened them in the elevator. A robotic newscaster voice explained that the daughter of one of Utopia's board members had gone missing and as an effect, the entire hotel would be under lockdown until the girl was found. Some tables hooted happily at the news. 

“Endless party!” One of the drunk guests screamed.

Taka gazed at the metal-encapsulated windows. The shield was probably covering the entire hotel like an unbreakable shell.

"You know, I really hate coincidences," Agra muttered and showed Taka a flickering red light on his gauntlet.

"What's that," Taka asked curiously.

"It's the _gentleman_ we bumped into inside the casino elevator," Agra replied as he overlapped the tracking signal over the hotel’s floor plan. "Look at this map. He's still in Utopia. Looks like he’s somewhere on level 35."

"What's on level 35?" Taka growled.

"Let's find out." Agra gave him a sly look as he stood up and headed back toward the elevators. When Taka twitched his mandibles and narrowed his eyes at him, Agra grabbed his pauldron and dragged him away from the food. "Don’t look at me like that. You don't have to eat several times a day. Come on. I'll buy you all the skewers you want after we check this out."

Taka chuffed but was able to tear his eyes from the kebab-peddler and follow Agra into the lift.

Level 35 was a huge circular battle arena surrounded by a colosseum of bleachers. This early in the day there were no ongoing fights and the stands were empty except for the debris left over from a surging crowd. The ring had been cleaned but the pervasive stench of old sweat and blood remained stubbornly. It was a place where the strong got pummeled by the stronger; a place that to a yautja, felt like home. Taka stopped to take in the sight and imagined what it would look like when it was filled with a teaming crowd hungry for blood. He almost got goosebumps. It only lasted a moment but he could remember it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

_Agra and Taka had finished a week-long hunt and had parked their ship on the outskirts of Prime capital moments before. They didn’t have the 'Dreadall' yet, and were still using their first scout ship. One older and less reliable, but they had been younger then._

_On the way back to their tribe’s precinct, they saw a line of hunters and warriors queueing at a bulletin board. Slightly intrigued, Taka convinced Agra their homes weren't going anywhere and they could spare a few moments to check it out. The commotion was, as it turned out, about a call for mentally-equipped and physically-skilled yautja that wanted to become enforcers._

_Something about making a difference to the yautja race tingled his senses, Agra felt it too. Taka could tell from the bright expression in his normally pensive eyes._

_Applying was easy, and they were both quickly selected from the pool of initial candidates. After all, their hunt record was impressive. However, in the following days, they had to prevail through several grueling trials. First there was an interview to discern whether the applicant was of the right mindset. After that a series of physical tests followed, involving strength, speed, and endurance. The third trial was weapons accuracy. Only 16 applicants were qualified to the final round; melee combat. Taka and Agra were among the finalists._

_The second match after half of the remaining aspirants had been eliminated was a team-fight. Two against two. The pairs were decided by lottery. Taka and Agra ended up in opposing teams._

_They were given a short amount of time with their partners to determine their tactic. It didn't take long for Taka to realize his allotted team-mate was a brash hot-head. Instead of trying to take down an opponent each, Taka suggested they work together and use their team-work to their advantage, but the fool had a sieve for a brain. He went after Agra the second the bell chimed._

_Taka didn't have time to see how his friend handled the assault when he was attacked by Agra's team-mate. The brown and yellow-mottled yautja charged him like a seismic wave. Taka danced to the side at the last moment. They repeated the procedure a few times until Taka grew tired of playing and slammed his elbow into the opponent's face. His mandibles crunched ominously before he sailed to the ground. After placing a foot on his defeated assailant, Taka looked up and noticed that Agra had won over his opponent as well. The two friends were now put against each other._

_Taka froze when he realized he had to fight his best friend. What if he won, and Agra was cut out from the selection, or the other way around? He didn't want that to happen. Their eyes met for an instant that seemed to last an eternity. The look in Agra's eyes told him everything he needed to know to be reassured; Don't hold back. Fight me like you would fight anyone._

_After Agra's permission, it was as if life returned to Taka’s limbs. With sudden fervor, he charged at his friend and threw a swift punch at his face. Agra dodged and twisted his arm, throwing him to the ground. His foot came down to stomp, but Taka pushed it back with his talons, green fluorescent blood sprayed. He rolled up to a stand and tried to strike Agra again, but his friend was too quick._

_Agra kicked his knee, the cartilage crunched and Taka fell heavily. His leg tilted at an awkward angle, making it impossible for him to recover from his prone position. Agra came at him but Taka landed a punch to his mandibles, sending him flying. He rolled over Agra who had landed on his back and straddled him. Taka drove his fist back and sent another powerful hit straight into his friend's face. Agra groaned. He tried to sit up but was mercilessly knocked down again. Taka started to pummel him ferociously, blinded by adrenaline. It wasn't until he exhausted himself that he noticed Agra was lying still in a puddle of blood. When Taka leaned over to hear if he was still breathing, his friend lifted his crest and headbutted him. Everything blackened._

_When he woke up again, Agra was above him. His face was swollen and dark green, which was a strange color for him to have. He told Taka they had passed the tests. Now they only needed to complete the enforcer chiva. It was a trial to catch a real bad blood and execute him. Agra had clasped his paw and pulled him up from the gurney. That had been the start of their mutual career._

Loud shouting and clamoring dragged him back to the present. Agra hissed and pulled him under a bleacher the moment a side door to the arena flung open. A heavily armed unit of octopus-guards burst out from the back office. They were shouting in their coms and pointing their plasma rifles over the arena as they moved through the colosseum. They failed to spot the two enforcers hiding under the stands and were soon out of the same door Taka and Agra had entered from.

"Now what was that all about?" Agra asked out loud to no one in particular.


	11. Chapter 11

The stadium's main door slammed shut as security left. From between the wooden-slate seats of the bleachers, Agra noticed that two octopus-like aliens were left to guard the office high above the ring. The office’s large windows that looked out over the stadium were ominously dark. Agra checked his tracker again. 

Unfortunately, the yautja that accosted them in the elevator was in that office and hadn’t moved since they had followed him here despite the ruckus of the guards.

“We need to find a different way in, Taka. I don’t think now, with the lockdown, is a good time to get caught by hotel security,” Agra clicked quietly.

Taka nodded, spreading his mandibles in a large smile. Sneaking was his favorite part of the job. Together, they patrolled under the bleachers for any way into the office without notifying the guards. After almost an entire lap around, bowing or stepping between cross beams, Taka found a sizable cooling vent in the wall. He cracked the vent grating off using a minimal amount of strength. They waited for a moment to make sure the guards hadn’t heard the crunching metallic sound.

Taka ducked in first. The tunnel abruptly turned up, so Agra launched him up the shaft. Then scaled it slowly with his legs extended and his back inching up the incline. Eventually, Taka reached down and hauled him the rest of the way up.

The crawl was easy once the vent leveled off. Taka explored off ahead. In the metal tunnel, it was challenging to crawl forward quietly. Every pinging claw or dragging knee created a metallic echo, which caused both enforcers to freeze and await the potentially alerted guards. Even though they proceeded carefully, there was no one better equipped to shuffle forward without making large sounds than the two yautja. As Agra followed behind Taka, he became suddenly aware that he was paying a lot of attention to his friend’s rippling thighs under his bionetting. In the claustrophobic vent, there was nowhere else he could direct his attention. After minutes of zoning out on Taka’s hindquarters, Agra tried a conversation.

“Taka?” Agra ruminated nervously, “how much do you remember about last night?”

“Varu is as hot as I remembered—” Taka grunted as he caught a blowing vent fan blade with a hand, “ha! And we need to do more work in the kehrite! I don’t know about you but mating took a lot out of me last night.”

“You drank too much.” This conversation wasn’t affecting Agra’s interest in Taka’s thighs. The movements of his dense muscles were hypnotizing.

Taka huffed, oblivious to Agra’s attention as he moved forward, “The mission was over Agra! So continue to razz me for wanting some pussy! Varu might have stolen our c’jit, but she’s a fucking incredible lay. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Agra was suddenly irritated, he banged his friend against the flexible shaft. “Varu is a liability Taka! Use your instincts! What are you a hunter, an enforcer, or a suckling? Stop thinking with your dick for one pauk-de second. How can you not see the hot water we are in!?”

Taka slammed back. The vent’s groan ricocheted between the walls in the tight space. “Don’t call me a pauk-de suckling! If we had roughed up Murk’ha to get his stupid clues before even coming to Utopia instead of your stupid idea, he probably wouldn’t have cut off the squirt’s head!”

“Oh, this is rich!” Agra kicked him in the shin, “You’re blaming me! If it was up to you, we wouldn’t even be in this pauk-de casino! Did you forget you are pauk-de banished? Pay the hookers you bed, even an unblooded knows that!”

Taka sucker-punched him to the gut, and within moments the two had begun to fight in earnest. The tight corridor flexed and groaned as they began to dent and tear the vent walls. With a miserable long wail, the vent shaft peeled from its ceiling braces and the two yautja fell twenty feet onto a bumpy and wet surface.

Agra groaned miserably from under Taka. Taka slid off him with his own lung-compacted rasp.

“What did we land on?” Taka padded his paws around underneath his spine. He chittered sadly and threw himself up to standing. “Agra get up.”

Agra rolled himself over. His gray eyes flicked around wildly at the object that had deadened their fall and jerked up next to Taka.

What was previously underneath them was the corpse of the yautja they had met in the elevator. His chest had been blown open by an unknown, disintegrating weapon. All that was left of the cavity that protected his two hearts was a cavernous hole rimmed with broken bones and fluorescent green pulverized meat.

“That explains why he hasn’t moved,” Agra said conversationally, but then darted forward to dig around in the victim’s armor pouch for any information on his identity. There was nothing, not even his mask. The security unit that left earlier probably cleaned the corpse out including anything that had the deceased’s identity. Even the chip lodged between his back vertebrae was vaporized. He had nothing left of his spine.

Taka had already moved on and was searching the room. It was fortunate the outside guards hadn’t heard their plummet from the vents, but Agra assumed the office was soundproofed. It wouldn’t be a very productive workspace if the sounds from the ring below could be heard while working. However, based on the design of the room, Agra figured there was plenty that went on in here that shouldn’t be overheard outside.

In the middle was a red, round, satin-covered bed with an arrangement of chains clanking ominously above. Adjacent to it, near the windows, stood a massive desk made of a single boulder of live-edge granite. Agra half expected the chair back to spin around and the villain would reveal himself, cackling. He shook off the thought. 

The rest of the space was simple. Besides the desk and bed there was a very ornate liquor cabinet, and the body, of course, but that was the entire office. It was dimly lit and the floor was polished to a high black shine.

“Someone has...bad taste,” Taka scratched his face with a mandible while observing the long expanse of satin sheets.

Agra abstained from comment. A bed in an office suggested a person with a very specified profession, but that wasn’t why they were here. He approached the corpse again and once more, mourned the loss of his mask. It would have been helpful to capture some pictures of the scene. Instead, he kneeled down to examine the perp closer.

“We can search our database when we get our masks back. My guess is this isn’t the first time he’s participated in something criminal somewhere. He’ll have a record.” 

When Taka joined him at his side, Agra immediately moved away towards the desk. Its surface was spotless, and as he circled it, he found a pile of paper gutted from a safe on the floor. This included an old-fashioned ledger. Agra noted the desk had inkwells and blotters before he opened the book.

Inside were pages and pages of meticulously scribed gambling transactions. Agra turned the pages to the back for the most recent date. There must’ve been a fight the first night of the party because the written record went on and on for pages of debts. Agra carded through the ledger with a thumb looking for anything particular, and then almost on a whim, flipped to the date of the disturbed Chiva. Taka had returned to his side and was curiously looking over his shoulder.

“What would be the chances of a connection between the ruined chiva and Utopia’s debt collection? That’s too much of a coincidence don’t you think?” Taka tilted his head at the book.

Agra didn’t respond. He was aggressively searching through the names now. One curved talon slipping down the page. He moved to the days prior to the chiva. His eyes feverishly scanned for clues. 

Then he had to double-take. He swallowed.

Taka nervously took the book from him.

“Carr’lin had a gambling problem,” Agra stated as crisply as possible. He tapped the locations on the page his name appeared.

“He sure did,” Taka agreed, looking through the thick pages. Carr’lin’s name appeared in more and more locations. He did the rough math and the freshly blooded yautja had chalked up thousands of credits to the house. Very little of it was paid back. 

Taka snapped the ledger shut just as the office door opened. Agra felt like he was just caught with his pants down, standing in someone else’s locked office that moments before was being guarded.

An impeccably suited man entered. At least Agra thought they might be a man. From hair to skin, even their fingernails, the creature was a single shade of red ochre. Their hair swept almost to their lower back. The alien had taken the time to match the baroque suit to their particular shade. They carried a pungent-smelling cigar in a robotic hand mounted under an armpit. Within seconds the newcomer surveyed the corpse and the two yautja with completely red eyes, no pupils. They pursed their lips.

“Gentlemen, I do believe this area is off-limits to hotel patrons. I certainly hope you have a shining excuse for your presence here.” Even their smile was red.


	12. Chapter 12

Taka dropped the ledger on the desk with a loud thud. The dead-quiet that followed stretched on for seconds until it was broken by the sharp trill of Taka's extending wristblades. They had been caught with their hands stuck in the proverbial cookie-jar. Agra whipped his head towards Taka and glared at him, but the green enforcer didn't acknowledge the criticizing stare. He didn't move a muscle, even his breathing was motionless. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the red alien that just walked through the front door. 

"I'm usually presented with a name before someone is granted access to this office," the suited alien hummed and glided towards the liquor cabinet. They pointedly ignored Taka's threatening posture and took out a crystal carafe containing a ruby-red liquid. The alien poured themself a small glass and placed it to their lips. "My name is Aevis by the way." They smiled again, a modest twitch at the corner of their mouth.

"Kuz'Agra, yautja enforcer. This is my hot-headed partner, Cin'Taka." Agra finally unfroze and tried to regain some authority. It didn't work, the red alien regarded them with the same amused smile. 

"Kuz'Agra..." they practically tasted the name on their lips with a sweep of their tongue and poured another glass of the liquor. This one however, they offered to Agra. When the yautja didn't take it, they put it down on a tray without comment. 

"Welcome to Utopia," The alien continued to sip on their own drink and closed their eyes reverently while swallowing. They then held out their arms theatrically and gave the enforcers a short mock-bow. Their sharp teeth gleamed crimson. "The happiest place in the universe!" 

"What happened here?" Agra asked tensely. His gaze drifted to the body on the floor.

Aevis sighed and put down the half-empty glass on the tray. "I suppose you didn't know Bar'non?" They shook their head slowly and gave the dead yautja on the floor a solemn look. "I know, I know. Just because you're yautja, doesn't mean you know all other yautja. I don't know all abrassians myself." 

Taka was still standing ready to strike. His mandibles knitted together tightly over his mouth. Agra gave him another stern look, warning him not to make any hasty decisions. He turned back to Aevis and pointed at Bar'non's scorched chest cavity. "I thought plasma weapons were prohibited on Vega?"

"How very observant of you." Avis skirted the desk and sank down in the empty chair. They placed their ankle on their knee and rested their gloved hands over it. "That is actually a rule that only applies to visitors. You see...hmmm.. how should I put it… We permanent residents have our own regulations." The robotic arm whirred to life and moved for the first time since their entrance. A little hatch at the end opened and revealed a small guillotine. It cut the cap of the cigar and turned it down, pressing the cut end on a metal plate. It started to smoke. Aevis placed the cigar in their mouth and took a deep drag. They held the smoke in their mouth at length before slowly venting it through their teeth. Aevis's red eyes focused on Agra. "So you don't know Bar'non... Perhaps you know the big, burgundy yautja that killed him?"

Agra tried not to show how shocked he was by the question. A burgundy yautja…? It could only be Varu'tri. His silence was taken as conformation. 

"I know something of the yautja honor code," Aevis announced with a confiding tone and took another puff at the cigar. They regarded the light gray ash at the end and gave it an approving nod before continuing, "Bar'non has been in my employ for quite some time and before him there were others." They looked at Agra dreamily while twirling the cigar in their hand. "You take care of your own killers."

Taka growled low in his throat while Agra nodded slowly and wondered where this was going. 

"We do," he answered coolly.

"I don't like having my men murdered in my own office." Aevis divulged and cut off the scorching end of the cigar after taking a final puff. Their robotic arm placed the half-smoked tobacco back in their suit's front pocket. "I want you to find that burgundy killer for me."

"Why?" Taka finally joined the conversation although his muscles were still frozen with apprehensive tension.

Aevis looked Taka up and down carefully. For a moment something sharp glinted in their eyes, but it was gone in an instant, their expression became fluid and amiable once again. 

"Because I'd rather not get involved in yautja business," Aevis said and then explained, "I am involved in many businesses already. This is a profession where you either fuck or get fucked. I myself can handle both ways," they mused and gave Agra a meaningful smirk. "but in my office I prefer to be the one that decides if, when, how, and _by whom_ , I get fucked."

Agra narrowed his eyes at the alien while Taka scoffed in the background. 

Aevis picked up the ledger Taka dumped on the granite desk and flipped through some of the pages. "Did you find anything interesting in my bookkeeping?" They asked casually while browsing to the end of the notes.

"Carr'lin," Agra growled and took a step forward. "How often has he been gambling at your battle arena? Every night?"

"If it says so in the books, it's true," Aevis replied.

"If we're helping you find the burgundy yautja," Agra said and puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger, "we need to know why Bar'non was a target."

"Bar'non was my collector." Aevis closed the ledger and placed it down neatly on top of a stack of papers.

"Perhaps the killer was hired by one of my gambling clients."

"He also collected girls. We saw him with the one that everyone is looking for, the board member’s daughter," Taka interjected and held out his wristblades toward Aevis, an obvious threat.

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Aevis said tersely. Their red eyes held Taka’s closely while they leaned back in the chair. 

"What do we get from helping you?" Agra cut in between to ease the room’s building tension. 

"Hmm." Aevis shifted their gaze to Agra and fingered the cuff of their suit. "How about I forget this little mess you caused with the ventilation system in my office?" they offered and chuckled, "Or the fact that you broke in here in the first place and went through my papers?" 

When the enforcers didn't reply they added, "And not reporting you for breaking into Utopia. Even when one of you is _banned_ ," Aevis concluded with emphasis on the last part and switched their attention to Taka. Their vermilion eyes shone like gems.

There it was. Taka was boiling inside. The cjit-eating glare Aevis had given him couldn't be misinterpreted. The alien with their tailored suit was goading them. Taka gave Agra a look to ask permission to start pounding the cjit out of this pauk-de deviant. He didn't believe for one second that this _kingpin_ was as innocent as they claimed to be.

Agra watched Taka grimly to shoot down any ideas his partner was having. He then moved his gaze to Aevis, nodded and clicked his mandibles. "Looks like we have an understanding."

Aevis flared off a red smile. "Feel free to use the door on your way out. That's how most of my associates get in."

Taka grumbled under his breath that ‘he'd be damned if he was ever associated with the likes of this alien,’ but Agra shoved him firmly towards the exit. Before the door closed behind them, he could hear Aevis send them off with an infuriatingly casual "Tah."

"What was that about!" Taka barked off and entrenched on Agra's personal space. 

Agra put a paw on his shoulder to calm him down. 

"We need to play along for a while," he explained and tapped Taka's shoulder softly. "There's obviously more to this than they’re letting us know." 

Taka groused but relaxed under his paw. "We were looking for Varu anyway. The female's got some explaining to do."

"Yes, she has," Agra agreed. "We also need to find out how Carll'in fits into all of this."

"I know. You don't like loose ends," Taka mimicked.

"Exactly." Agra tapped his mandibles over his chin as he usually did when he was deep in thought. "This lockdown can actually work to our advantage," he pointed out. "No one will be able to leave the hotel until the missing ooman girl is found. Not our suspects. Not Varu."

"And not Muk," Taka added. "If he didn't get out before the lockdown, that is."

"I doubt it," Agra clicked amusedly. "He wouldn't miss the party. There's still two more nights left before Vega turns back to just another normal resort, over-the-top still, but yeah, normal."

"So how long are we going to pretend to run errands for the alien with a sex dungeon in their office?" Taka folded his arms over his chest and quirked his brow at Agra.

"Are you worried I'll hand Varu over to them when we find her?" Agra asked curiously.

"I just think...things are getting too complicated. It feels like everybody is screwing with us one way or the other," Taka sighed joylessly. He rubbed his face with his paws. "And I miss my bio-mask…"

"Me too, Taka," Agra concurred and gave Taka's shoulder a light pat.


	13. Chapter 13

Before leaving, Agra took one last glance up at the stadium’s office and glaring back was Aevis. Agra returned the look. The Great Hunter God, Cetanu, would have his nuts if he blindly listened to a scumbag like that. Yes, Agra and Taka would find Varu but since a skilled enforcer dispatched that creep known as Bar’non, he probably had it coming. Agra figured Aevis probably did too, but their species wasn’t necessarily in the yautja’s jurisdiction. 

Once the heavy doors slammed shut behind him, Agra undid the tie holding his dreads back, straightened them all out, and reknotted the bundle. 

“Taka,” he mused, “Do you think Bar’non disturbed that Chiva?”

Taka humphed, “Doubtful. What’s his motivation? Was he planning on stealing unblooded female yautja for a sex trafficking ring?”

“Doubtful, absolutely,” Agra chittered in agreement. “But the trail has run dry, my friend. Our list of suspects keeps getting shorter and shorter. Muk likely killed an innocent. We are no closer to finding Varu or our masks, and we are now involved in unknown criminal activity. What should we do?”

Taka was equally mystified, but then his expression cleared. “Remember Antipa, the island planet?”

Agra quirked a quilled brow. 

“Hard to forget that one.”

“Well, what worked there?”

Agra hadn’t the slightest idea. Antipa was another cluster-pauk. They caught the bad blood because they were in the right place at the right time. He shrugged.

“Agra! Antipa! We got a drink!” Taka shook his shoulder, “Let’s get a drink.”

“It’s one o'clock in the afternoon,” Agra reminded Taka.

“Yeah! And I have a hangover. What’s better? Moping around outside the doors of Aevis’s lair or a change of scenery? Some fresh faces? Come on. If you’re that tight about it, I’ll get you a soda water.”

Agra sighed. “Fine, Taka, you win.”

Taka grinned in a way only yautja can, but this time, Agra glanced away as if he couldn’t take his friend’s exuberance fully. 

The nearest bar was on their current floor. It was jungle themed and featured a large, taxidermied herd of Armaverdons, an extinct species of tropical megawolves that were hunted to extinction by, amusingly, yautja hunters several millennia ago. Utopia must’ve gotten these specimens from a melting glacier at great expense. The bar wrapped around underneath the frozen beasts as they stampeded through the fake flora. Despite being the early afternoon, the bar was packed with recently awoken partygoers dealing with the outcomes of the previous night.

Agra fiddled with the figurine from the bad blood’s ship as he waited for his soda. Looking at it a second time didn’t hit him with inspiration about what secrets it held. The carved chimera and the two yautja were frustratingly withholding vital information. The more he examined the clue, the more he thought it held the key to all of this. His soda water appeared near his hand. He returned the tiny sculpture to his pouch.

“Hey,” Taka slapped his back, “Rau’veen is here too.”

Agra peered around the bar and there was Rau, draped over the counter like a wounded animal. Taka and Agra shared a knowing look before Agra picked up his tumbler and wandered over.

“Hey Rau,” Agra opened quietly.

Rau rolled his head to look at him, “Oh, it’s you.” 

He rolled his head the opposite way.

“Rau,” Agra grimaced. He felt wrong pressing him like this after what happened in the strip club, “when exactly did you meet Carr’lin here?”

“Why does it matter!?” Rau suddenly rasped at him with flared mandibles. Then he tucked them back, reeled himself in. “He was a bad blood, and I didn’t even notice.”

“So you met him here after the ruined Chiva?”

“Yes,” Rau resigned, “he was very defensive then too. I was blind.”

“Was he here before the Chiva?” Agra tried to make this question as off-the-cuff conversational as possible. It didn’t work, Rau tilted his head.

“Yes.”

Agra fiddled with the little umbrella in his bubbly water. “Was Carr’lin indebted to someone? Did he ask you for money?”

“We’re in a casino,” Rau chittered sourly. “He wasn’t a flawless pup, but who was a model youth? You? Me? Why does it matter? What aren’t you saying?”

Agra sighed. “Just concluding my report.”

“You didn’t kill him.” Rau narrowed his yellow eyes at him.

“No, I didn’t,” agreed Agra. Awkwardness stretched until Agra came up with one final question. “While you were here, in Utopia, did you ever see a dark yautja with bones on his dreads?”

“Yeah,” Rau turned back to the bar to wave down the bartender. “I saw him in the spa.”

Agra, sensing Rau’s stamina for questioning drop substantially, rejoined Taka, who was leaning on the bar, drink in hand, and legs crossed at the ankle like a roguish smuggler. Agra strangely hesitated to approach him before shaking off his odd vision. He quietly shared what he learned which wasn’t much. Carr’lin was in trouble, and likely lashing out because he owed the wrong people. 

“Paya, I wish we had our masks back! If we could reexamine the drone footage I bet we’d learn more about what Carr’lin was doing in the parking tunnels that day. I don’t think he left Utopia during the Chiva. I think he was right here,” Agra grumbled.

“We’ll get them back,” Taka finished his drink quickly and devoured a handful of bar-top peanuts. “Where to now? The spa?” 

“It's the only lead we have, but let’s not go through the main entry.”

Taka clicked his mandibles bitterly. “Not the vents again?”

They were in the vents again.

Behind the sparkling, calming atmosphere of the spa was a labyrinth of cement tunnels. Women bustled up and down them with stacks of warm towels, dirty laundry, and refreshments. Some doors along the corridors were always active while others were guarded by motionless aliens in dark combat suits. What was behind these doors interested Agra immensely.

So when the timing was right, Agra and Taka fell on a pair of guards. They didn’t put up much of a challenge once a sheet of steel and two yautja crushed them flat.

Taka recovered the access card from one of the guards and swiped in. They weren’t prepared for what was beyond the door. Agra had expected an illicit gambling den, but instead, he and Taka walked into a prison, a female prison.

On the inside of the door were two more guards. Taka and Agra spun on their heels in unison and knocked them unconscious with brutal efficiency. The guards crumpled into a pile.

Rows and rows of cages lined the room. Some were empty, but the majority held a single female alien, nude and chained. Each had a bag of fluid feeding into their bodies. The few that were conscious were so drugged they didn’t register the two yautja’s sudden appearance. The room smelled like sex and rotten perspiration.

Agra clicked his mandibles in disgust. It was unsurprising that Aevis and Bar’non were involved in trafficking women. He had to give Taka credit though for guessing correctly. Bar’non was an unmarked bad blood, but through and through, he was a disgusting yautja and his death was valid. Agra didn’t see a way to unlock the cages but even if he did, the victims were too drugged to be able to escape. He growled and rushed through the room. 

He ran into an adjacent hallway, but unlike the gray, fluorescent-lit back entrance, this hallway was florid with red projections and neon. The speakers pumped some heavy techno, but beyond the sound, he could still make out the moans of male exertion. 

Taka snarled and kicked down the nearest door. Inside was a bed with a woman chained to it. An avian man had his pants halfway down and was rutting into her. He jerked at them angrily at first but after seeing they were much taller than him, and didn’t look like normal security, he simpered. Taka backhanded him. Now missing most of his front teeth, the alien keeled over.

“We can’t save them,” Agra shouted at Taka over the music, “We’re trapped in this hotel, and so are they.”

Taka growled, “we can at least punish the assholes we find.”

“Do you think that kidnapped girl from the news is here?” Agra continued. They needed to focus, not succumb to the drive to destroy the place.

“Yeah,” Taka agreed.

They started clearing rooms and checking the females trapped in them. It pained Agra to leave them there. They were too vulnerable. Some species were seen by yautja as great prey, but in this state, they could never reach their potential. 

In the fifth room, there was no man, but on the bed was a delirious yautja female, not even old enough to take the trial. Agra and Taka mutually hissed and moved to free her, but as they advanced into the room, the door behind them slammed shut.

“You two!” 

They whipped around to face Varu’tri herself, enormous and masked.

“Varu!” Agra wanted to hit her, but yautja males don’t hit females unless they are fully prepared for the repercussions. Agra had too much on his mind to consider all the possibilities. There was a kidnapped yautja pup tied to a bed for one, and two, he wanted his mask back.

Since Agra was tongue-tied for once, Taka stepped forward and jabbed a claw into her breastplate.

“What’s going on?! You pauk us! You take our masks! You kill an unmarked bad blood. Now this?” 

Varu’s mandibles twitched while she narrowed her eyes. “Now isn’t the time!” She slapped Taka’s hand away. “There is a kidnapped yautja female tied to a bed over there!”

Agra snarled, “No! It’s the perfect time to give us our masks back!”

Varu looked like she was about to put up more of a fight but then settled back. 

“What’s the matter? Don’t trust me?” She huffed while she slung off her pack and removed the two stolen masks. When Agra and Taka snatched them back, she hissed, “There, happy?”

Agra quickly flicked through his data and systems to make sure nothing was tampered with or removed. “Hardly, but let’s get the female out of here. Taka and I have someone else to find. Time is short.”

Taka broke the chains while Varu attempted to jostle the pup out of her stupor. The female was tarnished with old improperly healed wounds and fresh ones, oozing with blood. When the pup finally stirred to Varu’s soft murmurs, Agra could hear approaching guards through the thin door.

“Company!” Agra shouted.

Three guards stampeded into the room armed with electrictrified rods. They shivered blue in the half-light of the bedroom. Taka greeted one with an elbow to the face, who fell like a lead weight against another incoming guard. The third unfortunate soldier’s ribs were rearranged with Agra’s fist. Taka and Agra pounced on the middle-man who was scrambling to get up from under the guard Taka first knocked out. 

Out in the hall now, more guards were barrelling down the corridor.

Varu had slung the almost suckling over her shoulders and met Agra and Taka in the hall. 

“Varu, that way is clear! We’ll catch up!” Taka gestured in the direction they came from through the cage room. Varu nodded curtly and sprinted away.

“That’s probably the last we’ll see of her,” Agra’s eyes sharpened under his mask as he watched her back recede. He was pleased to have it back, and he was ready to never see her again.

“Come on, Agra,” Taka urged as a new pack of security rounded the corner and fired on them. The neon green yautja threw himself into another door. It exploded to splinters. On the bed of this room, the girl was semi-alert. She moaned dimly at the two yautja.

“That’s her!” Taka snapped the neck of the first security guard to enter the room. “Grab her!”

Agra broke the chains holding the girl and hoisted her into his arms. She was a waif, lighter than a feather. 

“I’ll cover your exit. Throw me that chain!” Taka clicked as he dragged his claws down another encroaching guard’s face. 

Agra tossed him the chain. “They might have plasma weapons.”

“Not here. Not with clients around,” Taka stated calmly.

Agra nodded confirmation that he was prepared to bolt through the hall to their exit.


	14. Chapter 14

Taka charged into the hallway, roaring intimidatingly. He needed to cause an appropriate distraction to give Agra and the kidnapped girl a head start as they escaped the 'spa'. 

As he barreled forward, three more aliens wearing security armor came around the corner with guns drawn. They spotted Taka moving towards them and started shooting at him with their kinetic weapons. As he zig-zagged between the bullets, his armor took the shots he couldn't evade. The shells lodging into the technologically advanced metal.

The first guard had taken point and was 10 to 15 paces in front of his comrades, and as he approached, Taka whipped out the chain Agra had given him. The guard fumbled his weapon as the chain struck his hand. The enforcer kneed the alien in the gut and drove his elbow into his back when he doubled-over. The guard fell down on the floor in a whimpering pile. 

Taka slashed his chain again, this time catching the next guard's arm. He pulled the struggling man into his chest-plate and wrapped his arm around his prisoner’s neck. Taka shielded himself with the guard’s body as he advanced towards the remaining two. One of the guards, seeing Taka loom forward, dropped his weapon and tried to flee, but Taka released the bullet-peppered alien to sprint after the fleeing coward. His arm crunched satisfyingly when Taka bent his elbow the wrong way. The alien howled until the enforcer cut the wail short with an elbow to its snout. The escaping guard fell unconscious to the floor. 

Taka was about to take on the last one when the man blasted him with a shotgun. Taka felt the spray of shards sneak between his greaves and metal loincloth. Still, he barely acknowledged the impact and swooped down on top of the final guard. He used the chain to choke the alien. A quick look at their scattered weapons was enough to deem them useless. They were of a miniscule calibre, the guards might as well have tried to shoot him with peas.

Behind him, Agra called out to him impatiently from the end of the corridor. Taka whipped around and tore down the hallway to catch up with his partner. Agra was carrying the girl over one shoulder and holding up a door to the emergency staircase. They hurried down the stairs, just in time to meet another patrol unit coming up.

"How many guards are there in this Paya-forsaken..." Taka grabbed one of the jailers and bashed his head into the wall while another peppered him with bullets. "...cesspool!" More shouting and gunshots could be heard further down the stairs. Agra was on his way back up the staircase again and didn't stop to reply. 

Taka flipped the remaining guard over the railing and let him fall down the fifty-ish story drop before he started to pursue Agra. He caught up with his partner and the semi-conscious ooman a couple of flights above. Agra was pulling at a locked door. No matter how strong he was or how hard he tugged, it was no use. The door might as well have been welded shut. The enforcers were severely handicapped without their plasma casters. Vega's weapon restrictions were beginning to get in the way of getting the job done.

They continued further up until they met another wall of guards. The security was overwhelming in number, especially when Agra was carrying the limp girl. While the shots meant nothing to Agra and Taka, one hit to her would be the end of her life. The party doubled back, even though by the sound of clanging footsteps, another pack of guards were boxing them in from below. They'd soon be pincered in the stairwell. If they tried to force their way down there was a risk the unprotected girl would be hit by flying bullets. This escape plan wasn't going well.

As they returned to the door Agra previously couldn’t budge, it suddenly flew open and Varu's cracked, burgundy crest peeked through the frame. 

"Get inside," she hissed. 

The enforcers had no other choice than to follow. They stumbled inside and Varu slammed the door shut. She barricaded it with a thick metal dancing-pole. 

"Where'd you get that?" Agra asked curiously.

Varu shook her head, making her short dreads jiggle. "Don't ask."

Loud thumps and angry shouting could be heard from the other side of the thick door, but the pole pinning the handle held fast. Taka and Agra followed Varu through a narrow service hallway. She was alone, the young yautja female was nowhere to be seen. 

She led them to a room stacked full with neatly folded towels and bed linens. Taka helped her turn over one of the shelves and use it to block the door. Once they were secured, he noticed Agra kneeling on the floor beside the ooman girl. He had deposited her on a makeshift bed made of a pile of towels. Next to her, breathing rhythmically, was the freed yautja. Taka couldn't help but growl angrily when he saw her wounds again in the bright light.

"What kind of monster kidnaps girls and uses them as sex-slaves?" Agra spat. He was equally upset. Just seeing a yautja in that helpless state made both their blood boil.

Varu was quiet for a while, her eyes darted between the females and the two enforcers. Coming to some sort of conclusion, she kneeled on the floor beside the young yautja and clicked her mandibles sadly. 

"It's a long story…" she sighed and looked at the floor.

Agra wanted to ask her about Bar'non's death, but refrained at the last moment. They opted to give her a chance to talk first.

Varu didn't continue with her explanation right away. Instead she started to change the young yautja's bandages. She threw the dirty rags in a corner and dabbed the wounds with a disinfectant. The largest cut on the young blood's abdomen oozed liberally. Varu pressed a fresh stripe of cloth to the gash. When she was done, she pressed a burgundy paw to the pup's crest and hummed warmly before finally turning to Agra.

"I worked for them for a brief period of time… Aevis, I mean." Varu flared her mandibles when she said the red alien's name. "In the beginning I didn't understand who they were. Aevis was just the president of the battle arena. That's where they find their yautja goons by the way, fighting for credits."

She looked tenderly at the sleeping pup on the mountain of fabric and moved her paw to rub an atrophied arm.

"It wasn't until a few standard lunar cycles later I found out about the brothel." 

"When was this?" Agra queried after a moment of processing what she just told them. "Were you never here because of the bad blood? Did you have another mission?"

Varu retracted her hand from the pup and rose up slowly. She clenched her fist to her side before giving Agra a scorching look.

"I found out a while ago, but I didn't think it was my business to try to stop them," she growled darkly. "It wasn’t until I found out that Te'yli here had disappeared somewhere in Vega. I had a hunch, and it proved to be correct."

"Why our masks?" Taka rumbled, still annoyed about the way she tricked them.

Varu turned around and shook her head slowly. She cast down her eyes, almost ashamed.

"After quitting I wasn't exactly allowed to go near Aevis again," Varu explained. "I looked through your masks when you two slept. Your footage of Bar'non, it was the proof I needed to get an audience with them… I wanted to blackmail them into releasing Te'yli."

"But it backfired," Agra interrupted and clicked his mandibles.

"Yes," Varu snarled. "Instead of meeting Aevis like planned, Bar'non was waiting for me. There was a fight. I killed him with his own weapon." She shrugged.

"Aevis wanted us to find you..." Agra thought out loud.

Varu jerked back abruptly and stiffened.

"Idiots!" she hissed, "I knew there must've been a reason why security found us so quickly." She loomed threateningly over Agra.

"What are you saying? You think it's our fault we got caught?" Taka barked and moved in behind her to defend his partner. He grabbed her arm rather ungently.

Varu spun around and knocked his crest with her fist. Taka let go of her and rubbed his sore skull while hissing profanities.

"Aevis has spies everywhere!" Varu sneered. "If they asked you to 'help', it means they are using you for something else. Think for once!"

"We always think," Taka replied sullenly. His crest was still thrumming. He should've known better than to try to manhandle a yautja female.

Varu chuffed at him, but didn't make any more advancements. Instead, she tilted her head to the side and moved her gaze to the delirious ooman girl on the floor.

"Give her to me. I'll take them both out of here," she told Taka and reached out her paw to pick up the ooman.

"I don't think so," Taka growled and stepped in between her and the girl. "We'll get her back to her sire safely. You concentrate on Te'yli." 

Varu hissed back at him warningly, "How do I know you're returning her?"

"You just have to trust us," Agra reassured and moved next to Taka. Both enforcers were now blocking Varu from reaching the girl. 

"Fine!" Varu huffed and backed down. "Just don't wait too long. I want to be out of here before Aevis gets to us."

"We'll take care of it," Agra promised, his tense body-language telling her not to press further.

Varu bowed her head acceptingly. An awkward silence ensued before she turned around and walked to the far wall. She reached up and opened a grate covering the ventilation shaft.

"I always intended to return your masks you know," she said placatingly. Without further ceremony, she pulled up the yautja female and climbed into the ventilation shaft. "Don't follow us. Please."

Varu disappeared with the pup. Taka shook his head and knitted his paws. "This is the last time I let her screw with our mission!" He spat at Agra who only looked troubled.

"I don't know what to think about this whole situation," Agra said quietly and dropped his eyes to Taka's thighs. His pupils widened in surprise and he chirped distraughtly, "You're bleeding, Taka. Let's get out of here so I can fix you up somewhere safer."

Taka grunted and jumped up into the shaft. 

"Give me the female." He motioned with his paws and pulled her up with Agra's help. "I don't care what Varu says, let's use the vents to get out of here."

Agra climbed after and the two enforcers dragged the little female with them out of the linen closet.


	15. Chapter 15

They followed the vent out into a vacant hotel hallway. With Agra’s newly re-acquired mask, he scanned the room doors for lingering heat signatures, and on deeper inspection, the time stamp in the lock mechanism itself. He eventually settled on one that had been untouched for some time. The lock was easy to hack. After Agra’s quick fiddling, the light flashed green for a millisecond and the door opened. Taka slipped in with the girl.

He placed her limp form on the bed. She was a boney, waif of a thing with dark rings around her eyes. Her chestnut hair stuck to her sweat-beading forehead. Agra wondered if she was on the brink of death, looking like that, but he reminded himself that other creatures got sick regularly. These symptoms were her frail body’s way of dealing with the drug that doped her unconscious. She murmured in her half-sleep when Taka pulled away. He had to remove her clasping hands from his armor a finger at a time.

Taka’s lower body was bleeding from bullet wounds like a clogged sieve. While his bright green skin blended with his blood, the fresh scabbing radiated brightly in the darkness of the room. Agra had healing ointment but the scatter shots needed to be removed first unless Taka wanted to feel their internal pinch for the rest of his thousand-year-long life. Taka flicked the light on in the bathroom and Agra felt beckoned to follow.

In the mirror, Taka inspected his inner thigh before he loosened the pelt-covered codpiece that made up his loincloth. Dribbles of blood pumped weakly from the wounds. The bullets had embedded up his left thigh and spread as high as his waist. He clicked while he pinched a large shard out with his talons. Once removed, it squirted fresh blood like a small geyser before quickly tapering off. He undressed to take his bio-netting off. It would be hard to work around the tight weave.

Agra had never stopped to appreciate Taka’s narrow, muscled hips or even his broad shoulders. He was thankful for the return of his mask for several reasons and one of them was to be more covert about when he was looking at Taka. He tapped his mandibles in an attempt to focus on something more constructive.

“I think the little ooman female will be unconscious for some time, but this is an exposed position,” Agra reiterated the obvious to Taka, who had begun to dig out a deeper piece of shrapnel. He moved further into the bathroom and rummaged in his utility belt for a longer set of tweezers than Taka’s talons. “If we work together, it’ll be done faster. Sit.”

Taka shrugged and sat on the toilet lid. Agra lowered to one knee, uncapped the healing ointment, and rested the tin on Taka’s uninjured thigh. Taka was working down his body while Agra was working up. Removing shrapnel was normally a calming, menial task, but Agra wasn’t relaxed. His two hearts were pounding like when he faced the xenomorphs he cornered in his chiva. Still, his hands were steady and efficient.

He gripped Taka’s muscle and maneuvered it to fish into his wounds. The spray didn’t go very deep. Physical projectiles never did. Yautja were almost bulletproof. When he tweezed out a sliver of metal, he’d fill the dribbling notch with salve. It smoked as it sealed. The remaining scars weren’t particularly impressive, a scale or two looked pinched. Taka would probably naturally heal from them in a season or two. Agra’s palms felt too warm as he moved to the next one. He almost jumped when Taka spoke.

“You’re pretty quiet given what just happened.”

“I’m thinking.” It was almost a lie.

“Do you trust Varu’s story?”

“At the moment.” Agra did trust Varu. Her story fit together. Aevis had an unblooded yautja, almost a suckling, in his sex ring for pauk-de sake! The least Agra could do was blackmail Aevis, but he deserved to die; to have his intestines removed and his bones burned out. Perhaps Agra would get the chance. However, Varu’s story still had holes, such as, why not ask Taka and Agra for the recording of Bar’non? Or ask them after their night together to accompany her to the meeting? 

Varu must have been embarrassed working with Aevis. Any yautja wouldn’t want to be associated with scum like that. That was it. She was too prideful to ask for help and too conceded to consider the possibility she wouldn’t get the masks back before Taka and he awoke.

“Do you?” Agra asked Taka. At his lowered angle, Taka could easily pull Agra’s dreads. He was very prone here, and it made him uncomfortable. Abruptly he put down the tweezers to pace the small bathroom floor. Taka could finish the work himself.

“Yeah,” Taka huffed, “I trust her.”

Agra growled. 

“It’s amazing how trusting you are, Taka. She’s shown us time and time again she’s not trustworthy!”

“What the pauk, Agra! I’m agreeing with you!” Taka snapped back. “Cetanu, what is going on with you on this mission?” Taka clicked under his breath.

Agra wished he knew. He hated this mission. Absolutely hated it, so much for a challenging hunt in a casino during a fun party. The mission was a disastrous tangled knot and his emotions were wound up in it somehow. They shouldn’t have slept with Varu that much was obvious. Next time he’ll just stick to the breeding cycle. Cjit was safer that way.

He left the bathroom to check on the girl. She was moments from waking when she turned her head toward Agra. Her weary eyes slammed wide open. She screamed and scuttled backward off the bed.

“Please don’t!” she blubbered from her corner, “No more!”

Agra sighed but didn’t want her to feel any more threatened than she already did. He stayed motionless and let her cry.

“We are bringing you back to your father,” his mask stitched together the sentence from the sound bites he had on English. “Do you speak common?”

She nodded wearily before bursting into louder sobs. Agra stood in the room awkwardly. Oomans were so weird. Now was the time to be relieved and help them in any way she could, not to cry. He almost preferred returning to the bathroom to help Taka.

“What’s your name?” he said stiffly in common instead.

“Victoria Bisset,” she sniffled. “What’s yours?”

“Kuz’Agra of the Mada-Vi'rya clan. I am a yautja enforcer.”

“I’m a duchess,” she squeaked. Agra noted the banal conversation was calming her down. However, he was surprised she was a duchess. After all, she wasn’t carrying herself with much dignity, and monarchy was so antiquated. He sat down on the hotel room’s sofa to regain his poise. Five minutes of meditation couldn’t hurt. He heard the ooman rustling closer toward him.

“I know about yautja, you know. They keep human pets,” she wetly murmured.

Agra growled. He would get no peace today it seemed. 

“Few do actually. It is not respectable,” he chittered sourly.

“You don’t want a pet?” 

“No, I don’t.” 

Agra liked the fight inherent in mating. There was nothing interesting about restraining himself in the throes of passion. If a mate couldn’t take what he was giving, they shouldn’t have underestimated him. His idea of a good pet was a trusted hunting dog, but he didn’t regularly keep one.

However, he sensed his response relaxed her, unfortunately, at that moment, Taka came out of the bathroom, and she tensed again. His shrapnel wounds were mostly healed over.

“This is Cin’Taka. Say ‘hello’ to Duchess Victoria Bisset, Taka.” Agra introduced the two blandly. He really needed five minutes of meditation.

“Hi.” Taka croaked in common.

She gulped, but before she could respond the hotel room’s door exploded into splinters. 

Three guards busted inside with large, glowing rifles. Agra sprung up in seconds and raked his claws across the first guard’s face. He fired off an arc of gooey rounds. Everything hit was coated with purple slime until imploding into a single epicenter in the middle of the blast. Perfectly spherical burns were left on the hotel’s bed and up the wall. They smoldered. 

“Cease fire!” Aevis hissed at their guards as they entered through the destroyed doorway. “The girl!”

Agra had two plasma weapons pressed to his mask, so in a way, he was relieved to see the battle arena president, even if he knew they'd have a hard time turning the odds in their favor now. He had hoped to stay clear of Aevis's radar after the office incident. A stupid presumption in retrospect after hearing Varu's opinion of the alien.

The girl was breathlessly scared and like a cornered animal was looking for any way to escape. She tried to dart past the guards and Aevis, but Aevis’s robotic arm caught her easily around the waist. With one of their real hands, they jabbed her with an auto-injector. She immediately went limp.

“Gentlemen.” Aevis bowed to Agra and Taka before leaving the room. The president turned to his men and impassively ordered, “Dispose of the yautja.”

After Aevis had left, the guards holding Agra and Taka at gunpoint looked at each other for confirmation. It was all the enforcers needed to flip the situation around. Agra dodged and punched one of their knees backward, before the guards even fired at him. 

Taka took the second guard, first wrenching the rifle from her hand, and then stabbing his talons into her neck. She clutched the wound but remained in a fighting stance. Agra continued to scuffle with the guard on the ground. He wasn’t ooman but something similar, stronger. He trapped him in a body lock between his legs. With a swift squeeze, the guard’s spine snapped.

Taka took a second longer with the female guard before snapping her neck. 

“I need to get my armor from the bathroom.”

“Catch up!” Agra bolted for the door. He was going to rip Aevis’s spine out when he caught him. His skull wouldn’t be one he made into a trophy. He’d melt it in acid with the flesh still on.

Aevis waved at him and smiled triumphantly from the elevator’s interior. The remaining guard shot off a round, burning holes into the hotel walls as the door shut. 

“Pauk!” Agra waited for the indicator to say what floor the elevator stopped on while Taka appeared in the hallway with his bio-net loosely thrown around his shoulders.


	16. Chapter 16

Following Aevis like two hot headed unbloods would, of course, have been suicide. After watching the elevator-indicator stop at the battle arena, Agra immediately suggested that they try to get in touch with the Bisset girl's parents. With guards on their tail the safest place was one with as many other hotel guests as possible. The casino was open day and night alike, which was the perfect hiding spot. 

Despite having Aevis's death sentence hanging over them, Taka was completely ravenous. They hadn't eaten anything except for some bar snacks since coming to Utopia almost two days before. Taka’s energy reserves were hitting rock bottom. The hunger was making him grumpy and it wasn’t only his stomach that kept growling. 

Back at the casino, the enforcers sat down at a table and Taka was just about to call for one of the waiters when Agra nudged his side. He pointed a talon in the direction of a table with a roulette wheel. Taka's stomach growled, it was definitely his stomach, but once he laid eyes on what Agra was indicating, he knew he'd have to wait for that satisfying meal a moment longer. 

Over at the table, Murk'ha, Rau'veen and Ast'r were involved in a heated discussion. By the looks of their flared mandibles and puffed up chests, something was about to go down. Agra was already on his way toward the group so Taka had to almost run to catch up. 

"I demand retribution!" Rau hissed angrily. He tilted his face up to meet Muk's glare. Ast'r acknowledged the enforcers with a slight nod in greeting as they joined the disagreement.

"The evidence pointed to his guilt. What was I supposed to do?" Muk barked, "I did the right thing killing him, given the circumstances!"

"But he was innocent!" Rau sputtered and shoved Muk's shoulder harshly. "I demand you fight me to restore Carr'lin's honor!"

Muk gritted his teeth and growled back. "So be it! I'll rip your spine out oldtimer!"

Agra stepped in between the two yautja in an attempt to calm them down before they did something they'd later regret. 

"What's going on?" he asked Muk. The large, ugly enforcer ignored him. His yellow eyes were glaring at Rau, who was returning the stare defiantly. The air bristled with animosity.

When Muk didn't answer, Agra turned to Rau instead, "Are you certain Carr'lin was innocent? We found his dagger in the bad blood's ship, do you have proof it wasn't his?" 

To Taka, it sounded like Agra hoped that Rau was right.

Rau didn't acknowledge the enforcers' presence either. His unfaltering focus was narrowed intensely on Murk’ha. After a breath, it was Ast'r who stepped forward and answered Agra's question. 

"We found a pawn shop on the floor below the battle arena. They recognized the dagger," Ast'r explained calmly. "Carr'lin pawned the blade, but he never reclaimed it. It was sold to an anonymous buyer a few days ago. The shop shipped it to a temporary address in the red light district."

"So anyone could have planted that dagger in the ship, is that what you're saying?" Agra pressured the old sharpshooter. If this was true the investigation needed to be reopened, and Muk had broken the honor code. The worst fear of an enforcer was making an error of this magnitude. Muk may have killed an innocent yautja.

"Well, Rau discovered the pawn shop’s records. I’m not saying anything more specific than that," Ast'r clarified. "He bumped into me and asked me to witness when he challenged Carr'lin's killer, but now that two additional enforcers are here, it seems more your duty to see to that this duel is carried out properly.”

Taka growled angrily at Muk. Agra shook his head quietly and tried to talk sense into Rau.

"Murk'ha made a mistake, you don't need to duel him if your proof is solid."

The old hunter tore his stare from Muk, but even as he faced Agra his amber eyes still gleamed of anger. "I want to kill him with my own hands. Carr'lin was a good pup, he didn't deserve to be executed like that!"

Agra sighed. If this was Rau's will, the honor code demanded that they respect it. They had to allow the old yautja to fight Muk in hand-to-hand combat.

"Let's at least go somewhere less public to settle this," Taka supplicated. 

The group followed him off the casino floor and into an elevator. The atmosphere inside the cramped space was tense. Murk’ha and Rau’veen were placed in opposite corners with Ast’r, Taka, and Agra in between. No one said another word as they stepped out into a large dancing studio. The flawless wooden floor was polished to a blinding shine. Circling the floor were walls and walls of mirrors. After the battle, Taka knew it would be less pristine. 

"How did you know this area was empty," Agra whispered to Taka.

"They use it to film live shows every Wednesday. 'Dancing at the Utopia', I figured no one would be in here on a Sunday." 

Agra quirked a quilled brow at him and murmured surprisedly, "I didn't know you liked to watch dancing shows?"

Taka gave him a punch in the back and growled half-sincerely, "Dancing and fighting have a lot in common!"

Agra didn't get a chance to ask more because Muk and Rau had finished stripping off their weapons and armor. They were down to their loincloths before beginning to stretch and flex. While Rau was prepping with a warm-up routine, Muk was sitting down on the floor rubbing his knee. The familiar, zesty scent of gotaella suddenly tickled Taka’s scent buds. Muk threw an empty ampul on the floor and flexed his leg.

Agra picked up the small container and regarded it suspiciously. It was exactly the same as the one they found in Muk's evidence box. He brought out the vial from his pouch and laid them side by side in his gray paw. Agra exchanged a look with Taka, who flared his mandibles in shock. Muk resumed massaging his knee vigorously.

"You…" Agra stomped forward and shoved the two medicinal tubes in front of Muk's face. "You contaminated your own evidence!"

Muk gave him a smug look. _Did he know?_ Agra hissed at him and threw away the vials. They clattered away on the shining floor boards.

"Maybe next time, you'll think twice before trying to take short cuts," Muk chuckled darkly. The artificial light in the studio reflected off the metal rings on his tusks. The large enforcer stood up forcefully, crowding Agra with his bulk.

Agra was provoked by his arrogant behavior, but instead of challenging him, he stepped out of Muk's path and walked over to the side of the studio where Taka was waiting. Both enforcers looked at each other and growled. Agra and Taka had the same thought; they had been chasing a false lead. 

Rau'veen was already waiting poised in battle position in the middle of the room. Muk sauntered into his attack radius and settled down in his own stance.

When Ast'r gave the signal for the duel to start, they clashed together like two stags during mating season.

Muk swiped with his talons. Despite his age, Rau dodged the blow easily and countered by kicking Muk in his bad knee. The enforcer howled in pain but stayed on his feet. Rau crouched and stepped to the side when Muk tried to deal him another punch. They circled each other, Muk being the more offensive duelant, but Rau was quicker. He countered every blow with a swift jab, but the elder couldn't muster enough power behind his strikes to deal any real damage to the massive enforcer.

Muk feinted a swipe with his left arm, leaving himself open for a punch in the gut, but as Rau drove his fist forward he didn't get to follow through with his move, instead the enforcer caught the elder's fist and yanked him closer. The duelants smacked together, chest against chest. Rau was surprised by the move, but he became even more dazed when Muk slammed his crest into his face.

The older yautja tumbled to the ground, too disoriented to get up on his feet again. Muk inflated his chest and released a barking laughter. His eyes shone with a malicious glow. The enforcer took a step towards the crawling elder and spread his mandibles. He lifted a foot to stomp Rau, but as he did, the elder caught his other leg and pulled him down as well.

Both combatants grunted and scrambled up on their feet simultaneously. Muk growled, clearly annoyed at falling for such a simple trick. They circled each other again, both of them trying to pummel the other or throw them on the ground. Muk tried to charge the older yautja several times, but the retired hunter was still a lot faster than the huge enforcer. He danced to the side every time Muk attempted to knock him to the ground.

Taka tried to see if Agra was as irritated with this fight as he was. It was going on and on. They had more important things to do than judging a never-ending brawl. His partner seemed lost in the match, his visor never once turning to look at Taka. The green enforcer hoped they wouldn't have to wait much longer.

As if Cetanu had heard his plea, the fight crested when Murk'ha managed to land a kick into Rau'veen's lower back. The older hunter lost his balance and stumbled to his knees. Muk was on him in an instant, dealing out another kick that sent him face-first onto the floor. Rau didn't move, the impact had knocked him unconscious. Muk couldn't care less, he threw himself on Rau's back and grabbed his throat, his sharp black talons rested against Rau's spine. Muk's eyes were blazing with rage, he had taken the balanced fight as an insult.

The scent of blood caught Taka's tongue and both he and Agra charged Muk and overpowered him before he could rip out Rau's spine. 

"You already won Muk. Don't overreact!" Agra's chiding went right over the large enforcer’s head. He struggled to get loose but Taka held his arms in a vice-like grip. 

Agra stepped in front of Muk's face and hissed in disgust, "I think you should go on a long journey of repentance, Muk."

Murk'ha relaxed in Taka's grip and gave Agra a hateful stare. "Forget it! I won this fight. My honor is restored!"

"Really?" Agra mused and took off his bio-mask, holding it close to Muk's face. Only he and Taka could hear the embarrassing sounds in Agra's recording. 

Muk lost all the color in his face, turning into pale green and he stared wide-eyed at Agra. "You wouldn't!"

"Oh, I would." Agra replied tersely. "Every clan in the entire galaxy would get this recording. I have images too."

Muk looked like he had swallowed a fart-bug. He didn't move a muscle when Taka released him.

"A long journey of repentance." Agra repeated and clicked his mandibles. "As soon as they lift this lockdown. You're going to the gamma system to consider what you've done!"

Taka gave him a push towards the elevators and barked, "Stay out of our way until you can leave."

Muk didn't look back. He scrambled into the elevator as fast as he could to get away from them. 

Ast'r was crouching on the floor, holding Rau's head and checking him for any permanent injuries. Once certain there was none, he shook the old hunter awake and helped him up before joining Agra and Taka.

"Thank you for your help," Ast'r clicked and patted Rau'veen's shoulder. "Now when that's settled, we can continue to enjoy the party." Rau said nothing. He looked completely drained of energy.

As the strange couple limped toward the elevator Agra whispered to Taka, "Ast'r was pretty eager to write off this entire ordeal now, wasn't he?"


	17. Chapter 17

Agra tapped his mask’s chin as he reconsidered. Ast’r acted like their job on Vega was completed, when in reality it had become that much more complicated. They were running out of suspects and they were trapped inside the same building as an honorless gangster.

“Unless you think Rau had something to do with it? Ast’r is our only remaining suspect, and we know he was in Utopia before the chiva incident. I have his schedule right here.” 

Agra flipped out Ast’r’s holographic card and his event listings floated in mid-air. 

“He did know which pawnshop sold Carr’lin’s dagger, which is suspicious. The only hiccup is that his schedule says he performed the day of the chiva. Even in the fastest ship, getting there and back would be challenging, if not impossible.” Agra continued to rub the edge of his mask. “Do you suspect Rau’veen in any way?” 

Taka snorted gruffly. “What? That guy?” He glanced at the old yautja as he was carefully moving away with Ast’r. “He might be angry but he’s not exactly acting guilty. Besides, what’s his motivation?”

“A good question, Taka,” Agra sighed, “I don’t think Rau’veen is guilty either, but we can’t discount anyone. No matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out the motivation angle to commit this crime. I know becoming a bad blood is intertwined with emotions that are unseemly to a yautja, but for some reason, with this case, the emotions involved...to commit this kind of tragedy...are foreign to me.”

A growl interrupted Agra’s train of thought. Taka rubbed his stomach miserably, and it growled again.

“Paya, can we get something to eat?” Taka grumbled like he was a suckling being put through a challenging trial. Agra couldn’t help but chitter in amusement.

“Yes, yes, we’ve run on empty for too long,” Agra agreed. 

He too was starting to feel the pressure of hunger. Over the last two days, he’d been able to ignore it but taking a break to regroup mentally could help his cloudy thought process. Taka and Agra called for their own elevator after Ast’r and Rau had departed. The one that arrived was crowded with rowdy party guests. 

Taka had to squeeze tightly into a corner with Agra as the alien group jostled each other crowing with laughter. Agra shifted uncomfortably away from Taka’s warm skin and tried to focus on the party-goers sloshing drinks and singing raucously. One of them tried to cajole Taka into joining the fray. Taka begrudgingly ignored them. Agra figured he must be very hungry at this point. 

The elevator dinged and the group surged out onto the ground floor of the atrium. The gigantic, ancient sequoia tree loomed over them. Ferns tickled their fingertips and bare thighs as they walked towards the savory smells wafting from the center of the space. The botanical garden was Utopia’s central dining facility. Taka dragged Agra in the direction of the food. 

Down a winding path shrouded with palm leaves and tropical fronds was an expansive buffet. The table ran the circumference of the red wood’s trunks. Taka wasn’t the only alien acting half-starved, Agra had to elbow his way into the line, but once there, he stacked the white china plates with delicacies. When he had two plates piled high, he found Taka shoveling food past his mandibles like a man starved. Agra joined him at his table and took off his own mask.

“Remember to breathe, Taka. The air is free too,” Agra chided as he picked up a fried piece of calamari and doused it with a red sauce. He was immediately salivating and when the morsel hit his tongue, he sighed deeply. Food was always good, especially when Agra hadn’t eaten for some time, but Utopia’s was, as expected, incredible.

Taka spread his mandibles in a cheesy grin but went back to eating in seconds. 

While Agra and Taka ate, there wasn’t much space for words. Agra fell into thought. Despite the inconvenience, the lockdown was surprisingly helpful. Surely, if the bad blood was still here, he was only here because he couldn’t leave. Agra’s mind skipped to the duchess, that fragile ooman concerned about becoming his pet. She was kidnapped for slavery, he granted her that her fear was appropriate given the circumstances. 

Before encountering the three other yautja in the casino, they had considered notifying the girl's parents about her whereabouts. After contemplating their situation those plans were put on ice indefinitely. It was unfortunate that for Agra and Taka to uncover the bad blood, the girl had to stay missing. As soon as she was returned to her family, the bad blood would escape. As if Taka was thinking about the same conundrum, he dropped a skewer sucked clean of meat on his third empty plate.

“So what do you think we should do next?” Taka wiped a cotton napkin on a greasy mandible and leaned back in his bamboo chair.

“Well,” Agra huffed, “that’s a very good question. There are a few players still in the loop. Ast’r is on top of the list. We should catch up with Rau at some point too. I would feel better if he was cleared completely. Varu is still a factor. She might not be seeking the bad blood, but I’m sure she still has information on this case. Aevis…deserves to die.” he clicked his mandibles with disgust. 

“Then we have the ooman. Who we should not pursue,” Agra stressed wearily. He was starting to feel the effects of the meal. It was making him feel drowsy.

“But she’s probably getting raped...some more,” Taka stated bluntly.

Agra hissed under his breath. He thought of the bed in Aevis’s office with the ominous clanking chains hanging above. Speaking of rape, the yautja female had to be avenged. The situation was insanely despicable. It completely ruined his remaining appetite. He pushed over his half-finished plate to Taka who happily started to pick his leftovers.

“Aevis deserves to die at the hands of those he’s wronged. If the female herself is able, she should do it.”

“Hmmm, maybe.” Taka used a splintered bone to clean his sharp teeth.

Agra brought the bundle of his dreads around over one shoulder to pluck at them with a talon. Yautja didn’t commonly save their own kind. If another yautja had found the young female instead of Varu, Agra, or Taka, she might have been left to fend for herself. Yautja were sometimes incredibly cruel. Agra wouldn’t have been able to justify leaving her, but perhaps a yautja like Muk would have. Ultimately, Agra was slightly pleased Varu had been the one to step in and free her.

“What do you suggest we do?” Agra asked quietly. He was at a loss.

“We should kill Aevis. If that slimeball is making our search for the bad blood complicated, it will be easier to refocus if he wasn’t a problem anymore.” Taka cracked his knuckles after the bone clattered to his plate. “We can get the ooman back. Then when we are ready, after the bad blood is dead, we can lift the lockdown whenever.”

For a moment Agra reconsidered rescuing the female, but the risks clearly outweighed the advantages. Then another thought occurred to him, while he didn’t want to own a pet, maybe Taka did. 

“You said it yourself. Aevis deserves to die,” Taka clicked excitedly.

Agra was preparing a retort when he sensed they were being surrounded by guards. He stood abruptly, and his chair fell with a clang. With the bustling crowd, he hadn’t seen them coming. The guard’s plasma rifles were drawn as they circled the two yautja. There was no escape. Taka roared at them, quills arched, and arms stretched wide.

The group of twenty were momentarily taken aback. Agra saw them shake in fear, but regardless, they shuffled their rifles. 

“Aevis requests your presence, enforcers.” A brave soul in front spoke with almost a chatter to his teeth.

Taka chuckled darkly while he ground his wrist bones in a warm-up. 

Agra was less than thrilled. “Perfect timing.”

“Please, come with us. Without a fight.” 

“After you,” Agra growled.

Taka and Agra were escorted from the atrium at the tips of twenty guns. Unsurprisingly, few party-goers put down their drinks to ogle their departure.

This time, well into the evening, the stadium was packed. A fight was underway in the center ring, and the audience was howling like animals. The two aliens fighting were an octopus creature with eight limbs and a brutalized, limping arachnid. While the brawl was nearing completion, the smell of sweat hit him in the back of the mouth. It was familiar. Agra was sure Taka was remembering something interesting from it.

When they approached the door, a front guard knocked, but when there was no answer, concern among the guards spread quickly. They glanced at their prisoners for a moment before jointly kicking the door down. Inside, the space was darker than earlier in the day, so the guards spread out, turned their gun lights on, while a remaining pair kept their pulse rifles digging into Taka’s and Agra’s backs.

In the desk’s chair, Aevis was sprawled out. Their guts spilled out over the chair’s seat and onto the floor. Their insides were the same color as their outsides, red. Agra found this amusing, but he doubted the frightened guards wanted to share in the humor at the moment. Thankfully, Taka snorted without Agra saying a word.

After scouting the room, the guards turned on the pair. “How’d you kill the boss!?”

“Obviously, we didn’t kill Aevis.” Agra clicked. These security aliens were poor thinkers in groups.

The leader picked up a comm and started barking commands into it. While one of the guards pressed his gun into Agra’s back, ground it’s barrel deeper.

“Alright, you’re coming with us!—”

Suddenly, thick gas began to fill the office from the vents. It was murky green and Agra was immediately relieved he had put on his mask before being led into this office. He was able to breathe easily while the guards around him had already begun to cough and choke. Seeing an out, Taka and Agra darted into the fog.

As they left the office briskly, the crowd was standing and screeching. The bout was decided, and the two enforcers used the confusion to disappear. The crowd was clearing out, satisfied by blood. Taka and Agra hunched lower to hide. While keeping focused on the ground, Agra glimpsed a trampled poster. He had to double back for it, elbow a man or two out of the way to crouch and retrieve the crumpled paper.

When he returned to Taka, his partner tilted his head interested, but Agra grabbed his shoulder and dragged him out into the hotel’s halls. He had to get somewhere quiet and unobserved to double-check his discovery because what he caught on the poster he now held tightly in his paw was that Ast’r’s show was canceled on the day of the chiva.


	18. Chapter 18

"So now we know Ast'r lied to us about not having the opportunity to leave Vega," Agra concluded over a strong drink.

After their escape, the pair quietly slunk into the aquarium strip club where Car’llin was killed. A security team had already searched the place for Aevis's killer, while Agra and Taka had waited, hiding in a maintenance shaft above the fish tanks. Now, several hours later, the dancers and wait staff ignored them. They hadn’t thrown a credit at any of the dangers in too long.

"If one of his shows was cancelled he'd have almost a full day to fly to the chiva planet and back." Agra chittered after doing the calculations in his mask.

"That would explain why we saw him in the drone footage leaving the parking lot," Taka agreed while his eyes roamed over a nimble stripper with large breasts. Her assets bounced when she danced around a rope that hung down from the ceiling.

"We need to find more proof before we dispose of him, I don't want to repeat what happened to Carr'lin," Agra growled. "Astr's early show starts in a couple of hours. I want to get to the arena before he does."

"You would think they'd cancel the show after the president of the battle arena was found gutted in their office," Taka chuckled.

"Business has to go on I suppose?" Agra quipped. "It doesn't hurt to do a bit of reconnaissance. If this show is cancelled too, we'll have to look for him somewhere else."

"Alright then. Let's do some old fashioned hunting," Taka clicked eagerly and tore his eyes off the dancer. "It's been a while since we stalked anyone."

"Two days ago, Taka?" Agra huffed. He dodged the punch Taka aimed at his shoulder-plate and slipped out of their booth. Taka almost bounced with excitement.

"It's incredible what a bit of food does to your mood," Agra chirped. 

"Yeah, you should feed me more often!" Taka said with a cheerful snort as they dove into the nearest elevator.

They were the only ones in the cabin to step off at the battle arena floor. The stadium was empty, except for a few stage hands setting the center stage for the upcoming event. A couple of aliens with guns guarded the back office, but they didn't see the enforcers ducking under the bleachers. 

Soon, the amphitheater started to fill with excited, prattling bystanders. A few drunken groups of partygoers sang rowdy cheers while they waited for the opening act. Toga-wearing salesmen walked between the bleachers peddling snacks and beverages. Taka had no doubt bets were already being placed on the fights that would follow Astr's performance. 

A few minutes before the show was about to start, they finally spotted Ast'r as he appeared out of an elevator and sauntered to a row of boxes lining the side of the arena. He disappeared into a back room. 

The opening act commenced. An avian man flapped onto the stage. Taka didn’t expect a comedian, but the creature started to tell crude jokes about the various kinds of aliens that visited Vega. The crowd screamed with laughter and gave him a long applause when he bowed after the final punchline. Next, the announcer called out Ast'r's name.

Immediately a course with moving targets rolled in on the arena floor as Ast'r stepped onstage wearing his full awu'asa. The armor was made from a shimmering, pale alloy with black leather straps holding the pieces together. His blo-mask was decorated with colorful feathers. Ast'r's armor looked like it had never been used in any real hunts, not a single scratch was visible on the shining metal plates covering his body.

While he began his performance, Taka and Agra took the opportunity to pick the lock to his dressing room and slipped inside as soon as the older yauja started to shoot.

There was a dummy standing in one corner of the room and in the other stood a soft looking lounge chair. In front of the seat was a small table. On it lay a few personal items with a pitcher of wine. Agra picked up a necklace made of sharp teeth and studied it in the dim light. 

A couple of large, metal lockers lined one of the walls, beckoning Taka to take a closer look. Inside one of them he found Ast'r's casual attire and a light blue robe, but the other was empty. Taka stepped inside and called out to Agra who was sniffing the wine. 

"Plenty of room in here for two!"

Agra grumbled something under his breath but stepped inside obediently and closed the door. There was a sliver of light coming in from a vent in the door. Agra pressed his bio-mask to the hole and observed the room. Behind him Taka fidgeted and poked one of Agra's buttocks through the loincloth. 

"Tuck it in, you're taking all the space in here," Taka hissed while Agra froze and instinctively tightened his glutes. The grey enforcer growled and kicked back with his foot, scraping Taka's leg with his talons. 

"Hey!" Taka rumbled back. They both squirmed inside the tight space until Taka didn't have to grind against Agra's backside to fit and then the waiting commenced.

Ast'r's show took exactly three quarters of an hour, so Taka and Agra waited. Once his show was completed and he'd received the crowd's ovation, the showman ducked inside his box and began to strip himself of his armor. After placing his mask on the table and the armor on the dummy, he poured himself a glass of the wine and emptied the cup in one go. 

With only his leather loincloth on, Ast'r turned around and walked towards the lockers. He stopped right in front of Taka's and Agra's closet and inhaled deeply, pausing as if in thought. Then he opened the other locker and took out his robe. He smelled the fabric and shrugged before putting it on.

The old yautja sank down in the lounge chair with another cup of wine before sighing warmly. He leaned forward toward the table and turned his mask so the visor was facing upwards. Ast'r pressed his wrist gauntlet to make a call. He swallowed a mouthful of the ruby red beverage and leaned back in the chair while waiting for the signals to patch through. Agra was fortunate to see the video-feed from the locker's vent.

The call was picked up by a younger yautja, in the background Agra could see large, brown pyramids and gold-shimmering sand. 

"Ast'r? Finally!" The younger yautja exclaimed. "I've waited for you to call back!"

"Sorry, been a bit busy here," Ast'r replied and took a sip from his cup. "Any news about _you know what?"_

"Sv'aga'ta has been out of his mind with grief! Do you know his pup just got killed in his chiva?" The younger yautja exclaimed and combed through his dreads looking flustered. "I haven't been able to get an audience with him for days."

"I don't care!" Ast'r barked back and smashed the cup down on the table, making the wine splash. "If he can't release that pauk-de property to me I'll challenge him for the position as clan leader myself!"

"If you're serious about that, now would be a good time," the young yautja replied sullenly. "I don't think our so-called 'leader' could amass enough strength to pick up his glaive to defend himself. He's shut himself in his pyramid, only opening to receive more barrels of cnt'lip."

"Too drunk to defend himself you say?" Ast'r rubbed his chin and flexed his mandibles. "I might get another opening to visit once more soon. Just have to fake illness again to get out of my performance."

"That would be very helpful!" The yautja in the feed sighed. "Call me back when you're on your way. I need to go!" 

The screen became blank and Ast'r clicked his mandibles thoughtfully. He rose and poured himself the rest of the wine. The robe was put back in its locker. The enforcers in the other closet held their breaths until Ast'r dressed and left the room.

Agra and Taka nearly fell out of the locker when Agra opened the door.

"Pauk! Let's never do that ever again!" Taka growled and rubbed his lower back.

Agra was already on his way to the door, peeking out from the gap. "We're clear." He told Taka without looking back. "Let's go somewhere and try to figure out who Ast'r was talking to."

They snuck out quietly. Agra was acting very distracted, but Taka guessed it was because of the case. He didn't try to make conversation until they were reassembled at their new temporary HQ; a booth in the strip club, near the emergency exit. 

"So…" Taka rubbed his tusks together and clicked impatiently at his partner.

Agra waved his paw at Taka to make him settle down. He was looking through the information in the Vi'zada-ya'za clan database. When he was done he turned to Taka and explained what he found.

"The yautja from the feed told Ast'r that he couldn't get an audience with the clan leader…" Agra tapped his mandibles thoughtfully on his chin. "That would mean he's on the same planet as the leader. He said Sv'aga'ta was in his pyramid."

"Drinking," Taka added. 

"Yes." Agra affirmed. "The clan resides on a desert planet in the delta quadrant, near the chiva location actually."

"Near that sweltering lava-planet we chased the dh'te-seed killer to?" Taka flared his lower mandibles and snorted in disgust.

"It's a few lightyears away from that," Agra reassured him, but Taka was already zoning out, lost in thought. 

_The dh'te-seed killer had been plaguing the Vi'zada-ya'za clan for cycles, poisoning his victims with the noxious seeds of a desert-growing flower. They had though finding out who the killer was would be the hard part, but as it turned out, he had been extraordinarily difficult to catch once they discovered his identity. His choice of modus was very strange, because he had easily held off both Taka and Agra at length with his plasmacaster._

_They knew the bad blood had a ship stashed somewhere nearby and it was imperative he wasn't allowed to reach it. If he escaped the planet they'd have to track him down all over again._

_The killer had been watching them from a stone pillar as they scouted the area and started to blitz them with his cannon as they walked into target range. Taka had quickly pushed Agra behind a ridge and saved him, but the killer managed to hit Taka's shoulder with one of his bursts. Agra hadn't immediately noticed how bad it was and returned fire with his own weapon. The shot had burned up a large hole in Taka's trapezius muscle, but the wound wasn't cauterized by the heat. The charred hole still seeped blood and Taka was losing consciousness. The killer was advancing towards the ship, shooting quick bursts against their cover as he ran. Agra was getting ready to pursue, but when he glanced towards Taka to see if he was with him, Taka was leaning motionless against the rock._

_"Go, don't let him get away," Taka rasped. It wasn't possible to see his expression behind the mask, but the strain in his voice was unmistakable._

_Agra looked at the fleeing killer, then back at Taka. "No. I'm not leaving you to bleed to death."_

_"Pauk, go!" Taka groaned and tried to stand up. "Who knows –aaaahh– how many…" he couldn't complete the sentence. The pain was too great, the world was dimming around him._

_"...he'll kill," Agra supplied. "I don't care. You're my–" he stuttered on what to say next, shook his head and grunted, "–partner." He pulled out his medikit and pushed Taka to the ground. "We'll catch him later." His voice held a reassurance that made Taka relax._

_While Agra tended to his wound, Taka could only watch him work and wonder if every team of enforcers they'd met had a bond like he and Agra. He couldn't imagine continuing the work without his partner. It would not only be a lot more perilous to hunt bad bloods alone, but it would also be incredibly boring. Maybe Agra felt the same way, and that was why he chose to save him instead of catching the bad blood. Even if many enforcers worked alone, Taka decided then and there he would never hunt without Agra. If his best friend died, so would he._


	19. Chapter 19

Agra leaned back in his cushioned seat while Taka spaced out. So Ast’r was involved in clan dealings with the Elder whose pup had died in the disastrous chiva. That would have been valuable information when they first approached him. Ast’r had obviously kept it secret for a reason. Agra and Taka needed to uncover why.

“Hey Taka,” Agra jostled Taka’s shoulder with his paw. 

Taka jerked alert.

“Huh?”

“Let's go to a viewing booth and watch the chiva footage on a bigger screen. It’ll help us revisit what happened. There might be something we missed three days ago when we came to Vega,” Agra murmured. 

He was heavy with exhaustion, but there was no point in finding a room to bed down in. His mind was spiraling with possibilities, and the guards were still searching for Aevis’s killer. It wasn’t safe to snooze out in the open either.

Taka nodded his head, more to chase off his memory fog than in agreement, but he stood anyway. The strippers weren’t capturing his attention right now despite how hard they were trying.

Together, they moved through the hotel to the private viewing stations. These booths were rented for many reasons, pornography being the primary, karaoke was the close second. Regardless of their intended use, they were perfect for a blown-up look at the chiva footage.

Taka settled into one of the likely-soiled leather sofas while Agra wired up his mask’s connection to the screen. When Agra joined his friend, Taka threw a loose arm over the back of their shared sofa. 

They had several feeds to view through. Agra began with the overseer’s mounted cameras. Since the devices were speckled throughout the trial, one of them caught the roof’s cave in perfectly. Right before the collapse, three serpents had cornered the three young bloods. The young yautja were rightly nervous. The kiande amedhas were herding them expertly.

Then the screen rocked and dust clouded the camera’s shot. When it finally cleared, a serpent weakly screeched under a broken pillar until it's clawing hands fell limp. Only one yautja contender crawled out of the wreckage, Aya-ti, the only survivor of the disaster. Moments later one of the remaining xenomorphs would kill her.

Agra switched the camera feed to the view from the Elder pup’s mask, Bh'avin’s. This was jerkier to watch as the unblooded thrust his spear at the encroaching serpents. Then he snapped his head to the left as the pillar careened off its base and fell towards him. The feed went black.

Uda'rk-a, the final participant, had captured similar footage, but in heat tracking instead. He wasn’t crushed by the pillar but the roof collapse after it fell. Far beyond the pillar in the pitch black of the pyramid’s tunnels, was a heat signature of the bad blood.

Agra paused the recording and went to examine the screen closer. This was the only shot captured of the interloper. He traced the outline of the armor. 

“It doesn’t look like Ast’r’s armor does it?” Ast’r’s armor from his performance was a feather-plumed, glitz suit. When he was dressed down, like at the duel between Rau and Muk, Ast’r didn’t wear armor at all, but bionetting and a worked leather tunic. Agra wondered if he had a second set of armor, one that was more practical.

Taka shrugged from his spot on the couch.

“I doubt he’d wear the same armor as tonight out to ruin pauk-de chivas, Agra. I don’t think that sparkling thing has ever seen dirt.”

Agra made an agreeing sound. He was millimeters from the screen now. His crest almost touched the display.

“This armor has got a crack in it,” Agra fingered the armor’s yellow fault line on the screen. In the heat signature, the crack appeared slightly brighter than the rest of the armor. The bad blood’s heat was escaping through the slightly cooler suit.

“Oh yeah?” Taka perked up and studied the footage carefully.

“Yeah,” Agra pulled back and tilted his head. 

“Not much to go on,” Taka fell back into the loveseat, scratching his mask’s chin. “What about what Aya-ti filmed?”

Agra set up the feed switch before returning to the sofa and practically shimmying under Taka’s arm. 

Unfortunately, Aya-ti’s feed didn’t capture the bad blood, and she was the most removed from where the pillar fell. She witnessed the following roof cave-in that ended Uda’rk-a. When she coughed her way out of the dust, she scanned the crushed xenomorphs and darted away.

Agra leaned forward and replayed the clip. 

“I know there is something here, Taka.”

“Mmm?” he responded drowsily.

Agra turned around sharply to snip at his lack of drive, but he had the sunken relaxation of being asleep. Agra patted his knee once and went back to watching all the footage again.

Taka awoke later in a heap with Agra. His arm was still thrown across the back of the couch, but Agra’s head had fallen against it. The footage was looping quietly. Taka didn’t want to withdraw his arm too abruptly. He wasn’t sure how much sleep Agra had gotten. Instead, he settled deeper into the seat, and let sleep swallow him again.

He stirred when Agra was murmuring something. Taka wasn’t sure if he was sleep talking, which was ridiculous; a centuries-old, blooded yautja doing something a suckling would do.

“Taka,” Agra drawled.

Taka chittered, “yeah?”

“I was thinking….”

Taka tilted his head. 

“I was thinking that maybe….”

“Spit it out,” Taka snapped.

Agra swallowed, “the chiva.” He was coming back into his own awareness and shot alert. “Taka! The chiva!”

Taka huffed grumpily. “What about the chiva?”

“What if the pillar wasn’t to kill the Elder’s progeny?” Agra was immediately up to pace around the booth, “why go to the trouble? They were all seconds from failure. Why get involved at all if he was going to die?”

The footage was continuing to play. It was all Agra could focus on. Taka crossed his arms.

“If not to kill Bh’avin, what was the point?” Taka clicked.

“To kill the serpents! The bad blood was attempting to protect the unblooded yautja, not to kill them.”

“Does Ast’r have a reason to save any of them? What irony? He royally screwed up. They all died.” Taka chittered dubiously.

“His reaction to the Elder’s grief was strange, wasn’t it?” Agra was beginning to feel giddy. This was significant progress in his mind. “Some might say, unnecessarily aggressive.”

Agra snatched up his mask and the connection to the screen severed. “We need to figure out what he’s doing with the Elder. Come, we’ve dawdled enough.”

“It’s called sleeping.” But Taka followed Agra out of the viewing booth into the almost deserted hallway. 

Apparently, they had slept into mid-morning. The hotel and casino were only filled with the highest and stumbling individuals at this point. A three-day long party was finally taking its toll. 

“Ya’know Ast’r might be sleeping too?” Taka muttered. 

Agra hadn’t considered that. Maybe they could break into his sleeping quarters and steal his mask. They had to see if he had another set of armor too that he was stashing away. He wasn’t wearing armor in the parking lot footage nor was he carrying anything suspicious. But that wasn’t an excuse, the armor could've been smuggled in later.

“Hello Enforcers,” A familiar voice called to them around the curve of the atrium’s banister.

“Ah, Rau’veen! You’ve recovered.” Agra was pleased to see that despite the elder yautja’s age, he still had a fighting spirit. His body, however, remained battered. Rau was healing slowly and propped himself up with a carved walking stick.

“I don’t like the connotations of that remark.” Rau drawled with an edge of humor, “But, I’m ready to leave this paya-forsaken rock. This lockdown…” He shook his head and his dreads slapped his shoulders. "Losing Carr'lin like that. Losing that duel. It wears on me. I’d prefer to be elsewhere.”

“They won’t raise the lockdown until that kidnapped ooman is returned to her father,” Taka restated. Then looked away annoyed. She wasn’t in Aevis’s office the previous night. Maybe he had put her back to work in the cells behind the spa. Taka changed the subject. “When did you meet Ast’r? You two hit it off quickly.”

Rau tilted his head at Taka’s disheartened reaction, but he scratched his neck guard in agreeance. “I’ve known Ast’r for many centuries. We used to be of enemy clans, but when a treaty was formed, he and I were on the peace hunt.”

“How do you judge his character?” Agra asked pointedly.

Rau chittered bitterly.

“As of right now, I don’t believe two enforcers should accept my opinion as fact. I seem to have become fat, tired, and a poor judge of character,” Rau appeared pensive for a moment. “However, I would trust Ast’r with my life. He was once an enforcer too, and an honorable one.”

“Rau,” Agra’s tone became suddenly professional, “I’d like to view the recordings from your mask on the day of the chiva. If we could fully cross you off the list, I’d prefer it.”

Rau sighed, putting more weight on his walking stick.

“ _We’re all two steps from becoming a bad blood._ You know who told me that? Cetanu. I met one once, a priest that is. And I believe it more and more every waking day.” Regardless, he handed his mask over for inspection.

Agra checked through it while Taka and Rau continued their conversation. Rau was clear. He had been off completing a hunt at that time. Agra passed the mask back.

“Thank you, Rau’veen. That could’ve been difficult.”

“Anything for an enforcer. You did banish that ingrate, Murk’ha. I owe you a debt. What exactly did you threaten him with?”

Taka exploded in chittering laughter. 

“Enforcers honor,” Agra clicked wryly. “I won’t say, but now that you mention it.” He dug around in his belt satchel and pulled out the wooden figurine, “do you happen to recognize this?”


	20. Chapter 20

Rau'veen took the carved statuette from Agra and weighed it in his paw. It wasn’t heavy but from the heft, it felt like an old, dense wood. "What's this? Some kind of souvenir?"

"We found it discarded in the bad blood's escape vessel. It might hold some significance, or it might not," Agra explained, a bit disappointed that Rau didn't know what it was either. 

Rau’veen shrugged and passed it back.

Agra reclaimed the figurine from the old hunter. It was frustrating that this little ornament was their only lead to the identity of the bad blood. Carr'lin's dagger and the gotaella ampul had seemed like solid clues, but in the end, they had been ruled out, same as their shrinking suspect list.

Rau nodded to him and clicked, "Sorry, I couldn't be of any help."

"But maybe you still can be," Agra said astutely. "Do you know where Ast'r has his sleeping quarters? We'd like to question him too, just to cross him off our list once and for all."

The elderly yautja tapped his mandibles while he tried to remember. 

"You know. I think he rents a room over the strip club. He complained about the loud music once."

"Did he ever mention the Vi'zada-ya'za clan? Perhaps their leader, Elder Sv'aga'ta?" Agra asked leadingly.

"No, he didn’t speak about his lineage," Rau answered truthfully and looked genuinely sorry. "As far back as I remember interacting with him, we never brought up clan-business. I wish I could help you more…"

"Don't worry about it," Agra reassured him and clasped his shoulder. "You don't owe us anything. If it wasn't for our premature assumptions about your sister's pup, maybe he'd still be alive."

Rau sighed and clasped Agra back. "Good luck to you." He nodded to Taka before leaving them alone again in the large atrium. 

The enforcers leaned on the bannister, inhaling the fresh scent of the sequoia's needles. However large and interesting the Utopia was, Taka couldn't wait to get back to their ship. Agra was lost in thought, churning over the case in silence. All Taka could do was wait for him to say something. He was bored out of his mind, counting the bark ridges on the giant tree's trunk.

"Fancy doing some hacking again to find out which room Ast'r is staying in?" Agra said breezily and made a move to poke Taka's shoulder but stopped himself before touching the bare hide.

Taka rumbled positively. 

While they started to walk to the elevators, he commenced the codebreaking sequence to gain access to the hotel's booking system. The first cage to stop was thankfully unoccupied, none of them were in the mood for more rambunctious partygoers. The elevator ascended up the translucent tube to Ast'r's floor as the sequence breached the booking system's proxy.

"He's in room 52044." Taka scanned the carpeted hallway. It was empty and quiet except for the drizzling of a shower in one of the suites.

They stopped outside Ast'r's door and listened. When none of them could hear as much as a breath, Taka released the blade from his wrist gauntlet, sawed off the lock's piston and opened the door to the empty studio.

Ast'r's room hardly looked lived in. They only found a few personal items, no extra set of armor or anything that could be used as proof. There was a locked metal box under the neatly made bed, but it was impossible to open without knowing the combination to the lock. The permutations were nearly endless. Taka and Agra agreed that it would be best to wait in ambush until the old yautja returned.

Taka took a spot leaning on the wall next to the door, while Agra sat on the bed. He'd be the focal point when their prime suspect returned and that would probably make him overlook Taka long enough for a smooth, bloodless capture.

They waited in silence as the early hours passed into the afternoon. Once in a while Taka caught his friend staring absentmindedly at his armor or netting, as if there was something wrong with what he chose to wear. Even with the mask on, it was obvious he was looking. When Taka glared back, he'd quickly look away to disguise his blatant gawking.

"What's wrong?" Taka finally snapped and crossed his arms over his chest.

Agra huffed and refused to tell him. It was annoying Taka endlessly. There was a distance between them lately that seemed to be driving a wedge into their friendship. Once this mission was over Agra would probably want to 'talk'. Taka hated talking. If there was a way to settle the matter in the training room it was always his first choice. But now was not the time, and Agra seemed to feel the same way. Ast'r could come back at any time. He didn't have another show until later in the evening. So they waited in awkward silence.

Eventually Ast’r did return. Taka heard his steps before the ruined door slouched open. As soon as Ast'r stepped over the threshold, Taka jumped behind him and poked the tip of his wristblade into the surprised sharpshooter's unguarded neck. Agra stood from the bed and walked over to him.

"Carefully now, show your hands."

Ast'r hesitated for a moment, but did as he was told. With slow, plain movements, he raised his arms and turned his palms upward. Agra searched his tunic for hidden weapons while Ast'r angrily spread his lower mandibles at the enforcer.

"Are you out of your minds?" His voice was a mere hiss.

"Calm down," Agra chittered. "We're asking the questions. The only thing you need to do is answer them truthfully."

Ast'r glared back at him with his eyes narrowed to slits. "Tell your 'friend' to back off or something nasty will happen to his paw."

Taka chuckled and pressed the tip harder against Ast'r's spine. "Not before you're a head shorter oldtimer."

"You were seen at the parking lot the day of the disturbed chiva," Agra stated and paid attention to every expression on the sharpshooter's face. "What were you doing there? It was important enough to cancel your show that day."

"It's my business, not yours! Get pauked!" Ast'r snarled and glared at Agra.

"Did you perhaps take a trip with your ship?" Agra pushed on relentlessly.

When he didn't get an answer, the gray enforcer detached his mask and turned it to show the old yautja what was playing inside the visor. He stopped the chiva-clip right after the bad blood had fired the plasma caster and the ceiling collapsed. Ast'r stared at the footage with a grim expression.

"That's not me! You're insane," he growled and spat at the visor.

Agra snatched back the mask and started another clip. This time he played the conversation they witnessed between Ast'r and the clan leader's attendant. Agra clicked his mandibles satisfied with the surprised look on Ast'r's face.

"Let me give you a quick walkthrough of what I think happened," Agra offered and snapped his mask back on. "You have been hungry for a pyramid of your own back on the Vi'zada-ya'za clan’s homeworld. The clan leader, Sv'aga'ta, however was not very impressed with your achievements as an entertainer." He shrugged and gave Ast'r a moment to wait for the rest in anguish. "So you meddled in his pup's chiva, to make yourself a hero saving him. When your plan failed, you tried to pin it on an old enemy clan member by planting his dagger inside your ship."

Ast'r's sour expression ruptured and his mandibles flared wide open. 

"You really are insane!" His body was trembling with restrained fury while his eyes tried to burn holes through Agra's mask. "If I did that, he would make sure I'd never set a foot on my homeworld again! Disturbing a chiva is dishonorable, especially to change the outcome. Sv'aga'ta would never have approved of it, even to save the life of his only pup!"

Agra took the strongbox out from under the bed and handed it to Ast'r.

"Open it," Agra waited calmly while the furious showman unsealed the container and opened it to show Agra.

"There. Happy now?" Inside were several rounds of an unknown ammunition type. Ast'r growled, "That's what I got on my trip off Vega. Highly rare splintering bullets."

"For who?" Agra wasn't convinced. That ammunition didn't even look like it would be compatible with a yautja weapon.

"Not who. _What._ " The old yautja squirmed against Taka's blade. "You're right. Sv'aga'ta isn't impressed enough by my achievements to give me the pyramid I deserve, but that's going to change soon, with the help of _these._ "

"How so?" Agra took the box and examined a bullet.

"There's this mythical creature called _Dawon,_ " Ast'r explained, his voice took on a hint of pride. "It's immune to nearly all our weapons, but these bullets can pierce their hide and once inside, they shatter." He made an exploding motion with his hands.

"So a trophy? That's what would make him give you the property you're longing for, how convenient," Agra scoffed.

"Not just any trophy. _The_ trophy!" Ast'r snarled. 

"Then you won't mind if we take a look inside your bio-mask to confirm your story?" Agra closed the box and laid it on the bed.

"How would that help?" Ast'r snorted loudly. "You won't see cjit in there. I only use the mask when I'm on stage or out hunting. It's been locked up in my dressing room most of the time. Besides, the merchants I bought the bullets from aren't exactly comfortable with being filmed."

"Taka, would you be so kind…" Agra nodded to his partner.

Taka lowered his wristblade reluctantly and wheezed into Ast'r's earhole, "Give me an excuse to take your spine, lowlife." He waited a moment to gauge Astr's reaction before moving away.

Ast'r stood by stoically as Taka disappeared, his glaring eyes were focused intently at Agra. 

It was no use to try to get anything more out of him at this point. Agra figured he would deny everything and come up with excuses. Even though the creature he claimed to hunt was plasma resistant, and his face looked sincere, there were still too many coincidences. 

When Taka reappeared with Astr's mask, Agra immediately started to replay his recordings. Ast'r waited with a confident expression on his face that grew more smug the longer Agra took to find what he was looking for.

"Pauk!" Agra threw the mask on the bed.

There were no recordings from the day of the chiva, just as Ast'r had claimed. Even if he was beginning to empty all of his options, Agra still had a final asset. 

"What do you say about this then?" He produced the statuette from his satchel and waved it in front of Ast'r. "Recognize this?"

Ast'r stared wide-eyed at the wooden figurine. "Why do you think that's mine?" His appalled expression took the enforcers back slightly. He clearly knew what it was.

"Because it is!" Taka growled behind him and covered the exit with his body to prevent him from escaping.

"That's a female's deity! I'm not a female. Pauk!" Ast'r almost shouted. His self-restraint was crumbling again. 

Agra blinked behind his bio-mask. A female's deity? "What's the name of this deity, answer me!" He needed to follow through the act, even though he began to feel less assertive.

Taka was growling fiercely. He still didn't trust Ast'r, seeing Agra beginning to waiver made him feel uncertain too. They needed to stick with the plan!

Ast'r grunted and looked at the figurine like it was a piece of fecal matter. "Have you never bedded a R'ju-kunta clan female?" His tone became mocking, Agra's silence made him smirk. "That's their fertility deity, D'har-a."

"Don't act smart," Taka spat. "Everyone knows Paya is the fertility goddess. And I have bedded one, thank you very much. So has he." He cocked his head in Agra's direction.

"Then she didn't birth a female suckling for you," Ast'r quipped. "This symbol is passed from bearer to her female progeny. Once they pass their chiva, they receive the idol as a coming of age gift. Look it up if you don't believe me."

Agra scoffed, but was too curious not to search for the name in their records. He only found two short recounts of the tradition. Most of the R'ju-kunta clan kept themselves secluded, information on them was scarce. The second record had a sketch. It was unmistakably the same figurine. He sent the information to Taka, who ogled it quickly in his visor and discarded it without a second thought. 

Taka growled back at him, "This is cjit."

Agra had grown quiet. The gears in his head were spinning out of control. The last piece of the puzzle fit perfectly, but not for their current theory. 

"Taka…"

Taka felt the bile rise in his stomach. He didn't like the way his partner said his name. The tone of voice he was carrying never amounted to anything good.

"Taka. I think I know what female this deity belongs too…"

"No!" Taka refused to listen. It was the worst theory ever!

"A female that was here when we arrived. That doesn't wear her bio-mask. That belongs to the same pauk-de clan as the figurine!" Agra was too excited not to ramble.

"No. No. No, NO!" Taka roared and shoved Ast'r into the wall. The old sharpshooter smashed head first into the dense stone material and collapsed on the floor like a deflated balloon.


	21. Chapter 21

Varu'tri shook her short dreads in annoyance. Their tips tickled her shoulder ridges. She’d attempted so many plans in the last hundred hours, and all of them wasted failures! Her twin hearts ached with abandon. She would never be free of her punishing despair. 

She was back on the hotel’s roof. This would be the final night of the festival. The sun Vega orbited would be closer than ever in the last three hundred years. Not that the distance was perceptible, a comet can only get so close to a star without annihilating all forms of life. From the balcony, she spotted the bright white star. 

The young blood had accompanied her to the roof because Varu believed she felt uncomfortable alone in the room, where the empty bed waited menacingly. The burgundy female couldn’t begin to understand what the younger had been through but she would have to try.

Finding Te'yli was paya-praiseworthy, not that the youngling’s situation was. What happened to the kidnapped female yautja in that slaves’ dungeon was despicable beyond reason, almost unspeakable. To think that there would be some yautja who could witness something as heinous as that and leave a young blood there as if they deserved it. 

Te'yli didn’t deserve what happened to her. She recovered quickly in the last few hours. A stoic bloodling, she had little to say but responded well to Varu’s commands. She was an able-bodied and resilient fighter despite being out of yautja company for an unknown amount of time. Perhaps, Varu could redeem herself, maybe this female would make it past her chiva.

Varu grimaced painfully to herself, snapping her mandibles tightly over her inner mouth. She’d cycled through this mental path before. When would she stop berating herself? Likely in death, but she stubbornly kept living.

Te'yli glanced up sharply when Varu’s jaw clenched. Varu didn’t mean to alarm the light green and black female. She put her taloned paw over one of the young blood’s shoulders. Te'yli wore her old armor perfectly. Even while slightly cracked over the clavicle, it would protect her. If only Varu had a mask that would fit her, but Te’yli would have to fashion one herself. That was the honorable thing for her to do.

Varu whipped away from the balcony. She’d done enough sulking. “Te'yli, come.”

The youngling trotted after her, practically wedded to Varu’s hip.

“This might be unpleasant to you, but we need to find the ooman girl. She’s likely in one of Aevis’s many…” Varu noticed the young blood tense at her side, “rooms.”

Varu boarded the elevator with Te'yli. When the doors closed, she continued. “I’ve exhausted all other options, Te'yli. There is nowhere to escape the shielded windows or scale down to the surface from the roof. The drones orbiting the sides now make it almost impossible. We’d be caught and imprisoned.”

Te'yli said nothing, but her red eyes were open and interested. She tilted her head lightly as Varu tried to explain.

“Te'yli. If we get out of this hotel, I will train you. I promise you, you’ll pass your chiva and go on to hunt impossible prey. They will fall at your hand. You will be their end. But first, we must get out of this hotel. It’s vital. If we find the ooman girl, the lockdown will lift. Don’t you want to leave?”

Te'yli nodded immediately.

“Then fight through your discomfort. To succumb to it is to fall prey to weakness and fear. That is how you lose a hunt.”

Te'yli's pupils shimmered with concern, but she nodded anyway, then looked straight ahead. Conviction and determination radiated off her rigid posture. Varu was already proud of her.

“Yes, and of course remember, that Aevis is dead. Remember the feeling of that success. They were hunted but no part of their despicable corpse was worth keeping as a trophy. What you are afraid of is nothing but a ghost, which means nothing to a yautja.”

The young blood’s posture only coiled tighter. “Yes, teacher. Nothing.”

Hunting Aevis had been miserably simple. They were ripe with hubris and arrogance. Even though they surely knew they were at risk, they didn’t change their schedule. Stupid, but fortunate. It was a perfect situation to ease Te’yli back into hunting prey.

While Varu held his throat, Te’yli had gutted him with Varu’s old wrist blades. She had excellent precision and whoever trained her previously taught her to twist the blade at the end to sever the tissue holding the intestines to the diaphragm. The blood was glorious. Aevis died painfully. 

Te’yli and Varu barely had time to escape into the vents before the guards entered to find the corpse. They triggered a tripwire Varu had prepared, but before the room was filled with fog, Varu could swear she saw Taka and Agra among the guards’ ranks. 

She clicked her mandibles in the elevator thinking about it. If only those two would disappear too. She would prefer to be as far away from them as possible. Te’yli looked questioningly at Varu.

“When we have finally succeeded in leaving this hotel, we’ll go to the kehrite, and we can burn off your energy.” Varu clicked wryly in conclusion. 

Hopefully, she wouldn’t run into that pair again. Agra was a dogged male, wasn’t he? And Taka, his fellow, always equaled Agra's stubborn drive. They were still moments from discovering her involvement despite how many times she’d thrown them off successfully. She had been lucky before, but any encounter with them could very well be when her luck ran out.

Utopia was a giant hotel. The fact that she’d run into so many yautja she wished to avoid was odd at the best of times and infuriating at the worst. Thankfully, there were only so many places Aevis would hide the ooman duchess. Varu would need to go floor by floor. 

When the elevator door opened, she skillfully mapped through the hotel’s corridors and back entrances to one of Aevis’s many cached sex dens. This one was empty. Varu supposed with Aevis dead there was no one to coordinate their use any longer. Te'yli tensed when she saw the ominous bed made up with red satin, but with the space devoid of the ooman, Varu beckoned the female outside. Te'yli quickly followed.

Five more rooms continued similarly. There was no ooman duchess, chained up, hidden, or otherwise.

The sixth room was not empty, but it also wasn’t occupied by the duchess, instead, it was occupied by Taka and Agra. Varu breezed in like she had been for the last three days. Mate a male well and they’ll let a female do whatever she wants. Mate two males well and a female can do double what she wants. The two cjits were enraptured, or at least Taka was, Agra was a bit of an oddball. 

“Looking for the duchess too I take it? And here I thought you two were having such a good time.” 

Varu scanned the room briefly. Te'yli had taken up being guard outside the door. Apparently, seven rooms were wearing down the young blood’s determination. She was mostly untrained, but Varu would try to make amends and train this pup to overcome anything, even her chiva. For a moment, Varu succumbed to her dark memories again, but she quickly shook off her guilt. She would be harder on the female when they were both free of this dratted casino. First, the other enforcers needed to be dealt with again.

“Varu’tri,” Agra flicked her name as he cleaned under a talon, “we’re all out of suspects.”

Varu snorted, “Oh bother. Sounds like this bad blood has bested the both of you.”

Agra shared a look with Taka before training it back on Varu. “Can we see your mask?”

Varu’s control was perfect. She didn’t twitch. Her internal organs kept pumping at speed; her body temperature didn’t heighten. “No.”

At this Agra chortled, “figured as much. Do you recognize this?” He drew out Varu’s lost sculpture of D'har-a. 

At the time, when Varu abandoned the ship in the parking lot, she had thrown the idol away in a rage. It had bounced about, scuttling over the floor of the stolen ship, and disappeared. Seeing it now, in Agra’s mitts, jolted her with fresh possessive rage, but still, her control was perfect. Her response metered.

“No, why would I? What is it?”

“Teacher?” Te'yli was in the doorway. The conversation had apparently piqued the young one’s interest. She glanced from Varu to the two enforcers and recognition flashed over her face. Her mandibles perked up.

However, a different kind of recognition flashed over Agra’s.

“You gave the armor you wore in the ruined chiva to the young female, huh? I noticed the chipped breastplate in the video recordings,” Agra growled. Taka stiffened.

Varu’s plasma gun spun out of her over-the-shoulder carriage and blasted once at the two enforcers. The rifle’s bolt jettisoned toward Taka until the last second when Agra barrelled him out of the way. It slammed into his shoulder, leaving a smoking blackened crater in his breast plate’s strap.

Taka squealed miserably and caught the injured male as he staggered back. Together they sank to the ground.

Varu was already running down the hall with Te'yli at her side.


	22. Chapter 22

Taka carefully propped Agra against a wall to help his breathing. While the hole in his shoulder smoked less than it had a moment ago, the charred fringes of the blast-trauma gaped precariously outward. His blackened scales looked brittle like paper. When Taka removed Agra's mask, his friend’s face was staring straight forward, mouth hanging open to gasp for air, only his chest didn't move anymore. It was as if he'd forgotten how to breathe.

Taka felt his own ribcage compress like a vice. He fumbled on his belt to locate his medikit. The thick leather around it was soft and a bit rugged from wear. He plucked the large syringe from the case and pressed the plunger down a fraction to flush out any excess air from the barrel. He had done this so many times before. If Cetanu would give him respite this time as well, he would be eternally grateful. Today couldn’t be the last time he did this for Agra. Agra’s hide could bear more scars with stories to tell.

Agra jerked when Taka stabbed the needle into his abdominal muscles and injected the blue liquid. Taka was quick to grab Agra's upper arms and hold him tight against the wall when the spasms began to rock his body. Agra wheezed and his eyes rolled back in his head as pain contorted his face. His body grew stiff as a board, fighting the life-giving serum. The reaction was expected, but it bothered Taka that his partner had yet to draw a breath since taking the plasma hit. Taka felt his hearts thunder in his chest. 

It felt like an eternity, but then the muscles he was holding eventually softened, just a fraction. Agra inhaled sharply and his pupils turned back forward. He clenched down his teeth and began to breathe laboriously. 

Taka let out the breath he was holding in a trembling huff. 

"Pauk! Agra, I thought you were gone!"

His partner groaned as he tried to shift his body. He was wracked with panting breaths, like he was trying to catch up on what he’d earlier missed. Eventually, his control over the pain returned and his erratic breathing calmed. Somewhat recuperated, he gave Taka a wry look.

"Help me up. We need to find her." Agra stretched out his paw, but Taka slapped his hand away.

“No! Take a second, you moron! That plasma strike almost blew your chest in half.” Taka hissed.

"I'm too old for this," Agra rasped in return, but settled heavily back against the wall. His voice held so much weariness that the relief Taka felt moments earlier was washed away mercilessly. The green enforcer's mandibles twitched. He had hoped it was just a phase…

_They completed an assignment on a jungle planet close to Prime. Both of them received multiple injuries and were completely worn out from weeks of chasing a particularly cunning bad blood. Taka had almost lost his head in a log-trap. His mandibles were bandaged and his eye socket swollen, while Agra ached all over. His scales were speckled with thousands of crimson blotches from a poisonous plant the bad blood had put in a scatter-mine just to toy with them._

_Right before leaving the planet in their ship, they took a few minutes to eat a quick meal. They sat in a large tree tearing at strips of dried meat. Agra was scratching his hide restlessly and shook his head at Taka._

_"I'm too old for this."_

_"Really?" Taka mocked. "I'm the same age as you and I don't feel old. A male in his prime!" He clicked his mandibles and downed another serving of meat._

_"Cut it out. Don't tell me you never thought of retiring." Agra huffed and peered at Taka curiously._

_"Never," Taka said adamantly._

_Agra grew quiet. His gaze floated from Taka to the green undergrowth._

_"Have you?" Taka's voice suddenly sounded less certain. This was something he didn't want to talk about. Centuries of keeping the honor code. They were still good at it!_

_"A while ago I received a notice…" Agra looked sadly thoughtful._

_Taka didn't like where this was going._

_"What? A private notice?"_

_"Yes," Agra replied mutedly. He shifted uncomfortably on the branch, his visor darting from Taka to the ground. "I was asked to join the council."_

_Taka felt his gut twist around the dry meat. He stopped eating and clenched his paw tight. Trying to keep his calm. "The Council of Ancients?"_

_"Yes," Agra sighed. Almost sounding ashamed._

_"You're not ancient, cjit!" Taka stood up forcefully. His stomach churned like a whirlpool. He felt like losing his meal._

_Agra didn't answer. It didn't settle Taka's worry._

_"You're going to accept?" Taka couldn't keep the hurt from his voice, he didn't care that his emotions bled through._

_"I haven't decided yet," Agra replied softly. He picked up on Taka's distress, not wanting to add to it._

_Taka felt like his entire self was in turmoil. He had never felt so unsure or lost in his whole life. They had always been partners. Always! Ever since they were pups. Whenever he made a mistake, Agra had been there to pick up the slack and likewise. If Agra moved on without him, he didn't know what to do._

_Taka had no answer. He couldn't stomach to look at his friend. The betrayal was too big. He swung down from his branch and fell the hundred foot drop. When his feet hit the ground he started to run and didn't stop until he was completely exhausted. He laid himself flat on the jungle floor and stared at the sky. His mind was swirling with thoughts but he couldn't focus enough to process them._

_After that conversation, they didn't speak to each other for days. Taka took a trip to Arcturus by himself, spending three days in the brothel chasing off his agony with stimulants and countless sexual exploits. He probably ejaculated more during those hazy days than he had done the entire century after his chiva. It only helped momentarily. When he stepped into their ship again and saw Agra, it was as if no time had passed at all. He felt skinless._

_They returned to their separate rooms, only leaving their voluntary confinement for trips to the bathing hole and food locker. No joint meals, no tactical discussions, no training in the kehrite._

_Taka remembered the flash of his gauntlet as he was tucking into bed. Just a short message, Agra wanted to see him in the ship's training room._

_Agra was standing in the middle of the fighting ring. Taka approached him apprehensively. Agra didn't need to write in the message what he wanted to talk about. Taka's hearts sank. He stopped at a short distance from his partner, waiting for Agra to plunge the dagger into his chest, figuratively speaking._

_"I replied to the council." Agra said gravelly._

_Taka felt his hearts stutter. This was it. He was left drifting on a makeshift raft in the middle of a hurricane._

_"I turned down the offer," Agra stated._

_Taka was too stunned to say anything. He felt completely petrified._

_"I don't know, Taka," Agra began to pace back and forth restlessly with his arms behind his back. "I always thought I'd die in the hunt. Meet the Black Hunter and continue my eternal existence at his side." He sighed and rubbed his mandibles. "On the council, I wouldn't get to hunt again for centuries. Not like this..." He trailed off and tapped his upper mandibles apprehensively on his mouth. "...not with you."_

_Taka was still in shock. What was he saying?_

_"You are my best friend… My brother," Agra continued. "I don't think I'm ready to move on without you. Not just yet." His gray eyes were gleaming, mandibles twitching around his mouth as he waited for Taka to say something._

_"Cjit!" Taka finally chuffed once the tension left his body. Another emotion started to spread through his veins –anger._

_He lunged forward with a roar that came from the pit of his stomach._

_Agra stood statue-still with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. He didn't even try to evade the fist punch. It landed straight on his mandibles with a loud crack. A pained yip escaped his mouth. The mandible was broken, hanging crookedly down over his chin. It would take many weeks to heal. He let Taka punch him in the face a second time. The pain made him see swirling stars, but he only grunted this time. Taka punched his gut, then spun around and kicked him in the chest. Agra flew out of the ring and landed on his back. The air was almost knocked out of his lungs but it also invigorated him. Finally, Agra started to fight back._

_The training that night lasted for hours. They held nothing back. Nothing. In the end they both had to ravage their medikits for clamps and healing salves, but the air was cleared. Trust restored._

Now this…

"Don't start this cjit with me again!" Taka growled and clenched his paw in front of Agra's face.

Agra didn't respond. He looked tired. His gaze drifted to Taka's chest. Lingering on his fur-covered breast-plate and trailed down over his abs.

"Why are you acting so weird!" Taka raged and snapped open the clasp of his mask to be able to look him in the eyes. "Ever since we slept with Varu you've been acting weird. Stop staring at me!"

Agra averted his gaze quickly. His talons dug into his palms when he clenched his fists hard.

"Answer me!" Taka's agitation was palpable. His rage could be smelled and the scent went straight to Agra's scent-buds.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)

Agra sucked the heated scent in deeply and sighed it out. “I’d like to be able to explain it, Taka.”

“Then do it.” Taka gripped his shoulders hard enough to dig his claws in. “Admit it!”

Agra tilted his head sharply at his friend. He almost died and this is what he wakes up to? How could he even put what he was feeling in words? He barely understood it himself. Taka had always been his best friend, and only within the last day had their relationship become something else entirely.

“What do you mean?” Agra whispered wearily at his friend, who was only smelling angrier and angrier.

Taka shook him. 

“I’m not blind! Admit it!”

Agra wanted to wiggle free of Taka’s gaze and grip. 

Taka growled and practically cracked his crest against Agra’s. 

“You stubborn asshole! Admit you want me!”

Agra practically snapped his neck in surprise, he titled it so abruptly. 

“Huh?"

“Pauk, how are you the smart one? I’m attractive! I’ve had people look at me before! Ever since Varu…” Taka gave him a stern jostle for emphasis, “you’ve been giving me that hungry-look. So drop the cjit, you’re a bad actor and an even worse liar!”

“But Taka…” Agra swallowed against his suddenly parched throat, “how could I admit that? It could ruin everything. It’s stupid. It came out of nowhere. I don’t want to admit it.”

Taka pushed Agra’s back into the wall he was propped against. “Do it…coward.”

The intensity with which Taka pinned him and the closeness of his clicking mandibles trapped Agra more than Taka's pinning hands. His mouth parts moved of their own volition. 

“I want you,” Agra was resigned that the cjit was going to hit the fan now. Taka wanted him to admit it and now he had. His twin hearts pounded frantically within his ribs. Like everything else with this hunt, Agra didn’t expect this interaction to end well. He braced himself for the worst.

Taka chuffed smugly.

“Ha! Knew it! I’m irresistible.” Despite Agra’s confession, the only thing that changed was that Taka smelled less angry. He hadn’t lifted off Agra yet and continued to weigh down on him. 

“Yeah, Taka, you’re irresistible. Can you get off me?” Agra groaned. While the life-saving needle had healed his wound, the after-affects was always soreness which was only exacerbated by Taka’s heavy body. 

But Taka wasn’t listening. 

“Damn right I am.” He had relocated one of his hands from Agra’s shoulder to stroke down his waist. Taka’s gaze followed the exploring hand. Agra flexed into it as it traveled. His abs tightened in stacks as Taka’s hand skimmed lower to eventually splay across the top of Agra’s exposed thigh. Taka smoothed the patterned scales there with a thumb. His voice sounded thicker now.

“So how do you think this works?”

Agra swallowed again when the realization hit him. There was going to be more to this than simply acknowledging his interest. 

“Mathematically?” he gulped his answer back.

“Yeah, it’s simple, isn’t it.” Taka continued to rub Agra’s thigh in full sweeps. Anytime his grip inched towards Agra’s hip crease, arousal spiked through him. 

Agra was choking back the release of his musk. Vega was a strange city. Utopia was even stranger, a fantasy hotel that made odd magic happen. Maybe he was actually dead, and this was how Cetanu took his hunters back? Agra shook his head to dispel the thought. Cetanu wouldn’t welcome the strong after death with the offer Taka was suggesting. Agra shakily reached out and threaded his taloned fingers through Taka’s falls. If he was misreading the situation, he’d quickly learn he was mistaken.

Taka’s dreads were similar to any he’d felt before but fairly long. He sought a hefty one in the back. Agra couldn’t ignore that he had seen this particular tendril flash among the others over the last few hours and he’d wanted to do just this. Even as his finger grazed it, he could feel its pulsing warmth. When his seeking hand curled around it to squeeze, he appreciated the turgid resistance. 

With Taka pressed against him still, Agra immediately felt Taka’s body stiffen against him. Taka’s hand stopped its slow petting over Agra’s thigh since he was paralyzed with Agra’s stroking hand. A shudder flickered down Taka from crest to calves. His bright eyes caught Agra’s with a bizarre wildness that Agra had only seen cast at others. To counter the stare, Agra squeezed the fat dread harder and for a second, Taka’s eyes rolled up before returning with a fiercer fire. Taka lifted Agra from under the thigh and pressed him harder into the wall.

“Am I to understand that you like this?” Agra chittered as if he’d just consumed something thickly sweet and was having a tough time swallowing.

“What? You don’t?” Taka peeled his sharp eyes away from Agra’s skeptical ones and curved his neck to capture one of Agra’s dreads in his mandibles. He tenderly gripped the rubbery length before delving deeper for another. The next one he caught, he nipped with his inner mouth.

While Agra attempted to suppress the release of his dai shui, the sensation of his dreads being manipulated like this by Taka, of all yautja, interrupted his concentrated effort. His scent dumped out of him like he tripped over a bucket filled with it.

Taka’s chuckle reverberated up the cord in his mouth. The spot he suckled was warmly wet. Agra shivered against him and scuttled further into the wall hoping to regain a semblance of composure. This definitely wasn’t the same as when he mated with females. Never before had he lost his mind in a flood of sensations, and Taka was only fondling his dreads. Agra couldn’t imagine how he was going to behave if he correctly understood that this was going to escalate. 

Even considering ‘escalation’ in an abstract way shifted his cock in its sheath. Agra withdrew his hand from Taka’s falls so that he could wrap his arms around the back of his friend’s torso and pull him closer. The move brought Taka’s mandibles to Agra’s neck guard. It also allowed Agra to take a handful of dread tips in one hand and yank. In response, Taka arched his back and growled. Wisps of his dai shui seeped out of his pores into Agra’s nose buds. Taka began to purr, which sent vibrations from Taka’s chiseled abs right into where he rested on Agra, his groin.

Agra snapped his mandibles closed to prevent an embarrassing sound from escaping. If he was on the brink of becoming erect before, he was fully erect now with barely seconds in between, and there wasn’t any way to hide that fact from Taka, who infuriatingly bore down on his erection with elevated purring. Agra was only tangentially aware of the theory of males mating, obviously not yautja, but other bipedal species. Taka referenced he knew the same. With the theory in mind, Agra grew feverishly warm. His anus clenched reflexively. One-handed, while the other was occupied in tugging purrs out of Taka, Agra disconnected his own loincloth then moved to Taka’s, but he hesitated on the latch.

Taka bit into the arc of Agra’s shoulder, and with his hand threw off his fur loincloth. Agra hissed through his teeth at the pulse of his blood rushing into Taka’s mouth. Taka didn’t let up on his bite, instead, he used his freed hands to grip the bottom of Agra’s thighs and adjust the male against his abdomen. Agra deliriously rocked against a similar erection to his own. His shredded mind couldn’t believe the arousal he found mirrored on Taka was real. Taka’s cock was blistering hot against his taint and slippery with slick. Agra was relieved he wasn’t alone in how affected he was. It would have been agony to learn his response was one-sided.

Agra grabbed for Taka’s hips to try to position him properly. It was suddenly imperative he felt the male inside of him. Agra was struggling to prop himself up against the wall but also align himself. Taka’s teeth buried in his shoulder weren't helping him focus any better. Taka parted Agra’s legs further and breached his hole with the flared end of his cock. Agra grunted mindlessly. It hurt but he had to force it deeper. Instinctual release was tugging him along on a leash, and he couldn’t remember a time in his life, hundreds of years, that he wanted it more.

Taka gasped against Agra’s neck and snarled in the blood pooling out of the bite mark. He clutched into Agra’s sinking hips with his talons, but Agra finally found purchase on the wall to force back. He lodged Taka’s cock deep into his cavity with the help of his bucking hips and his digging heels. Agra fisted his hand into Taka’s dreads and squeezed. The other male shuddered with purrs and rocked forward.

“This is…” Taka clicked in segments, “intense.” All the s’s were pleasant rasps.

Agra lifted enough to feel Taka’s length pass through him only to throw himself back down. It hurt less now, wrapped around incredible. He wasn’t fully capable of acknowledging Taka’s statement with a full response. 

“Harder,” he growled instead into Taka’s ear hole. He clawed his talons down Taka’s abs in the same path his eyes would trace before when he was confused and hungry. Agra wanted the mark to stay there forever. He wanted Taka to come up with excuses to explain what happened. The marks left neon green trails. His abs clenched in pain.

Taka listened and grabbed Agra’s hips to set a rigorous, pounding pace. Agra grabbed at Taka’s falls to hold on. Taka was hitting a deep target inside Agra that Agra didn’t even know existed before this moment. He was filled, which cast all the moments he was empty in sharp comparison. He trilled ecstatically against the meat of Taka’s neck. Taka bit him again, which sent his blood humming wildly. He wiggled frantically to make Taka fuck into him faster. It worked well, Taka throbbed into him.

“Oh, pauk!” Agra’s body clenched and concern shot through him. Taka was striking some foreign spot on the inside of his body that was jolting him with bolts of ecstasy. His mind was blacking out in patches as his cock twitched drips of cum. He groaned the same statement again, and this time, when Taka plowed into him, he came like a rocket firing. He arched his back in pleasure and splashed three more times across their torsos for each thrust Taka finished buried inside him.

He barely registered Taka hung over him like the thick branches of a jungle tree, groaning his own release.


	24. Chapter 24

Taka pulled out sloppily from his friend and let him sink down on the ground rather uncarefully. His arms suddenly felt as slack as his spent cock. Still dazed from tiny pulsing aftershocks, he dropped down beside Agra and nuzzled into his warmth. He couldn't help but to press his face against Agra's neck and give the seeping wound another lick. It was easier to hide against Agra’s rugged scales than having to meet his gaze.

"Taka…" Agra sounded as unsure as Taka felt. He always knew what to say next, but this time, he was stumped. The words hung in the air, like a heavy perfume neither dared to inhale. 

When Taka finally pulled away from Agra's body, he drank in the sight of him. The bite-mark on his neck glowed brightly green. His mandibles were knitted tightly together over the fang-filled mouth. Taka braced himself and let his eyes travel higher. His concern had been unwarranted, relief washed over him when he met Agra's glimmering gaze.

Taka wanted to say something clever, but his brain kept drawing blanks. Eventually his eyes settled on Agra's chest. The armor on his upper torso was spattered with bright fluids. Further down, over his chiseled stomach, the flared head of his cock nudged the trail of short, dark spines that divided his patterned scales.

Agra was still stiff. His length twitched against his abs and dribbled a few more drops of cum. 

Taka averted his eyes quickly, but the mischievous glint in them couldn't be mistaken. He thought Agra looked like a young blood again, with the insistent erection of a juvenile in his first mating season.

"Better than you imagined, huh?" Taka's mandibles twitched cheekily.

"Yes," Agra answered breathily. His piercing, gray eyes made Taka's sass pour out onto the blood stained floor. All that remained was a pinching feeling in his gut.

"Errr...what did it feel like?" Taka couldn't dodge Agra's gaze. He felt exposed, trapped between Agra's bottomless pit stare and his still half-hard cock.

"I…" Agra tapped his tusks in contemplation. "It was unlike anything I've experienced before." His gravelly tone was hypnotizing. Taka wanted to know more, he wanted to learn everything.

"Do you want to do it again, or…" Taka’s breath quickened slightly. His own member had slipped back into the safe confines of his pubical sheath but he usually didn't have any problems to perform twice or even more times in succession.

"Do you?" Agra's intense eyes flickered down from his friend's cum-drenched armor to his closed sheath, "want to try it?"

Taka swallowed thickly. _Did he?_ He had a hard time believing it would be pleasant. His own hole was probably insensitive, because he never felt anything remotely titillating about that particular body part. Then again, he had never considered putting anything inside himself before, but Agra seemed to have enjoyed it and Taka wasn't normally one to turn down pleasure when the opportunity presented itself.

"I'll try anything once, you know that…" He peered challengingly at Agra and ran a talon along his partner's sticky abs, pointedly avoiding the swelling tip of Agra's arousal. Even though he'd just been inside him, and was about to reverse the roles, it still felt too awkward to touch another male's genitals with his paw.

"Over there?" Agra cocked his head over toward the king sized bed.

It looked clean enough, even if Taka had to concentrate to shake the image of Aevis practicing his twisted activities on the black silk bedding. Taka stood and Agra followed his movement like the skilled, focused hunter, Taka had known his whole life but never from this angle.

Taka retreated until the back of his knees hit the bed. Arga placed his paws on his shoulders and pressed him down gently to sit on the springy mattress. His head tilted questioningly to the side. A few stray falls had escaped his leather ribbon and were sweeping against his bicep. 

Taka wondered if Agra had always been this handsome. The swirling flame patterns on his otherwise modest coloring radiated alluringly. He was hypnotized by his friend's scaly hide as Agra bent over and unhooked Taka's fur-covered chest-plate, then did the same to himself before putting them carefully on the floor beside the bed. Taka's netting followed suit shortly.

"You're a mess…" Agra clicked with a content sigh while climbing up on the bed over Taka.

He licked a stripe from the edge of Taka's now bare sternum down to the coarse scales surrounding his sheath. Agra hummed appreciatively when he swallowed the mixture of Taka's blood and his own semen. The rugged texture of his wet tongue tickled Taka's hide in a way that made the neon green male want to topple him over and pauk him again, but that wasn't the current agreement.

When Taka's stomach was thoroughly cleaned, Agra continued to lick lower. His tongue slithered in the crease of Taka's sheath, making his hips buck up helplessly from the mattress. Taka sucked in a hissing breath when the forked tip of Agra's tongue found his ass. His cheeks clenched in reflex, until he willed himself to relax and let Agra do as he pleased. 

Taka felt the pin-prick pinch of the other male's tusks poke into the inside of his thighs when he pressed his mouth to Taka's hole. His tongue breached his sphincter with surprising ease. Taka hardly felt it lather him up, but what was coming next would of course be a lot thicker. He was grateful for his friend's foresight, although it was a very typical Agra-thing to do. His partner was always the organized one, forming plans before Taka barely managed to assess the situation.

He glanced down to his own groin and confirmed the sprouting erection he'd felt grow while Agra prepared him. His dark green shaft twitched with misconceived excitement. Keeping himself from rubbing the throbbing tip was agonizing, but he didn't want to take away Agra's chance to make him spill his seed with penetration alone. It felt important to give Agra an equal opportunity to undo him, same as he had done to Agra. Shuddering slightly from both arousal and nerves, Taka dug his talons into the smooth sheets to keep his paws occupied and purred to busy his mind. The sound was a bit rough and winded, but it was more for his own benefit than to assure Agra.

When Agra came back up, he shot Taka a concerned look.

"You sure about this, Taka?" he chirped softly. His fingers moved nervously against his palms as he regarded Taka intimately.

"I'm sure," Taka whispered hoarsely and nodded the best he could while lying on his back. "Pauk, do it already!"

Agra started to purr soothingly and stroked Taka's muscular thighs.

"I'll stop immediately if you don’t like it. I don't want you to feel like you have to…"

"Agra! If you don't take me now, we're going to have a fight!" Taka growled as a warning.

Agra chuckled brightly and looked like he actually wanted to see if Taka would follow through with the challenge, but his own oozing erection convinced him not to push his luck.

The head of his cock looked impossibly fat when Agra adjusted himself between Taka's well built cheeks. Taka felt himself clench involuntarily again as the hot tip made contact with his tight ring of muscle. He recognized it was one thing to travel into unknown territory in the heat of passion, but quite another to do it intentionally. 

Luckily, Agra seemed to have everything under control. His deep purr helped Taka loosen up a bit, but not enough to accommodate the full size of Agra's cock. Taka still needed to deliberately tighten every muscle he had control over and slacken them methodically to allow himself to be breached. When he felt Agra stretch him open, he almost lost control of himself. His lungs felt full of whines with no room for air. Taka looked up at the ceiling and saw their reflections in the patchwork mirrors. Two yautja breeding.

"Can I try something?" Agra kneaded Taka's hip affectionately.

Taka clicked his tusks in response. His leg twitched.

Agra pressed Taka's thigh up towards his stomach and lifted his foot up to rest on his good shoulder. Taka almost squeaked when he pushed inside slowly. It was painful at first, but once Agra had seated himself fully, the burn felt bearable. His friend moved slowly, studying his expression with scientific interest. Taka snarled into his own fist, his mandibles were scrabbling at his paw for something to hold on to. Soon Agra found a rhythm that was pleasing to both of them. 

Taka huffed every time Agra bottomed out against his velvety colon. It felt nice to have the other enforcer inside him, but not much more. Agra shifted his body, making his thrusts enter Taka from a slightly different angle. On the next impact, the air was flushed from Taka's lungs. He made a pathetic sound that would make even Murk'ha cower in shame. Agra increased his speed and pounded against a spot that made all his insides resonate with delirious pleasure. The thrumming tattoo of his heartbeats drowned all other sounds of their mating act. Wet blood filled Taka’s mouth from shredding his own fist when Agra beat his intestines into exultation. 

His abdominal muscles spasmed uncontrollably as Agra's cock pushed him closer to his peak. Desperately, his paw moved to his cock. He completely forgot that he wasn't supposed to touch himself. Taka squeezed the head of his own length and he ruptured in a soundless roar when Agra slammed into his bowels. The amount of seed jetting from his cock was less than his previous climax, but the euphoria lasted longer. He was still jerking dryly when Agra growled into his leg and spurted into his shuddering hole.

Afterwards, they lied together bonelessly, Agra stacked on top of Taka. Their arms were tight across the other in a firm embrace. Taka wasn’t sure he would want to let Agra ever slide away from him. As the moments passed, Taka recognized they couldn’t stay here forever, crumbled on a bed in one of Aevis’s sex dungeons. There was a bad blood on the loose. Varu… that fact it had been her still stung.

"We should go after Varu before she finds the ooman and the lockdown is lifted," Taka groaned. He didn't feel like pursuing her at all, but he knew he'd regret it later if they let her escape.

"The duchess," Agra murmured into Taka's chest and lifted his head up heavily. "If we find her, we find Varu, and then we can take a vacation. Just you and I."

"I'd pauk-de kill for that," Taka sighed and pushed back the stray strands that had escaped Agra's hair-strap. "Anywhere but Vega."

"I promise," Agra purred and dragged himself up from the bed with a dejected sigh. "But first, let's go find the bad blood and finish our job."


	25. Chapter 25

Collecting the assorted pieces of themselves after their sexual discovery was lazy and slow. Even fetching their loincloths and settling them back on their hips was a paced process. They performed these small tasks quietly, but always in a close orbit with the other. Agra must’ve drowsily collided into Taka twenty times before exiting the room. His conflict around Taka had settled, for now, and each time they circled back to each other, there was a sparking warmth. Neither wanted to be separate. All their touches lingered. They resealed their masks reluctantly.

But despite this strange awakening, where Agra and Taka had ventured into unknown territory for themselves and yautja alike, they had a job to complete. If they abandoned their task now, when they were so close, another piece of their forged identity would shatter. Agra wasn’t sure he could take another fracture. There was already too much to be uncertain about. He was only certain he wanted this bad blood dead as quickly as possible so he could revisit exploring his feelings for Taka and perhaps Taka’s insides.

“Varu,” Taka clicked quietly outside in the corridor, an edge of sadness in his voice.

“Any of us can become bad bloods, Taka. If I’ve learned anything from being an enforcer for all these centuries, it’s that becoming a bad blood is easy. All it takes is one little emotional slip-up,” Agra reasoned at the same decibel. 

Almost dying and then having his asshole pummeled toned down the world. Agra felt unreasonably relaxed for someone that had worked through the last three, dissatisfying days. 

“Varu was a good yautja until she wasn’t. What she did is reprehensible.”

“But why’d she do it, Agra? There was no reason for her to get involved. Why try to save the unblooded yautja at all? It’s against her character.” Taka stroked the scabbing remains of Agra’s scratch on his abdomen. He was obviously still struggling with Varu’s unfortunate involvement.

“Don’t pick at it,” Agra quietly chastised and took Taka’s hand away from the wound. “Varu’s character doesn’t matter. How well you think you know someone is worthless. They will always surprise you. Besides, you only slept with her a few times. It wasn’t like you sired her young.”

Taka shook his head, but Agra couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or continued disbelief that Varu was the bad blood. Taka’s wild dreads softly fell over his shoulder. Agra was transfixed and had to shake his own head to refocus.

“I thought not. Varu was always unknown. Put it behind you,” Agra chittered, “Now think, you’re Aevis, a red, three-armed, androgynous alien with a penchant for chaining women down against their will. Where would you hide a valuable ooman girl? Varu is likely checking their rooms. Aevis must have a few. I don’t want to follow along behind Varu. She’s already better equipped than we are about the locations of these cached sex dungeons. We need to cut her off. So think. What do we know about Aevis?”

“Little. They were a creep.” Taka clacked his sharp teeth.

“Aevis liked to keep things of value close,” Agra sighed at his friend’s inability to think beyond the obvious.

The corridor ended in the open-air atrium. Clearly, the three-day party was entering its culmination, because the hotel was in a full swing. Multitudes of colored light danced over the central sequoia. Agra appreciated the beauty. Utopia was oftentimes trashy and tasteless, but the real diamonds of the hotel were these fantastical brief milliseconds he would never forget. He could still taste Taka’s blood on his tongue and when he inhaled, the faint scent of gotaella lingered on his tongue, like a comforting caress.

“But we found the duchess in the dungeon behind the spa at first. That ruins your theory,” Taka reasoned.

Agra tapped his mask’s chin with a talon.

“Well-founded. The security was better in the spa than in these individual rooms. Security is key. We could recheck the spa, but I bet it remains in shambles from our last visit, not very impenetrable." Agra deliberated while going through their visited locations in his mask's memory. "What about his office? Varu likely killed him. His death seemed yautja didn’t it? A disrespectful end, he wasn’t collected as a trophy, but did she thoroughly check the office?" He turned to Taka, but his partner only gave him a shrug as reply. Agra continued to theorize, "Security was on that space like flies to cjit, and we had just missed the culprit. Where else did those smoke grenades come from but the vents?” 

Agra leaned calmly against the atrium’s banister, and watched the party-goers far below like ants communing around the ant mound.

“We could try the office. What else have we got to lose?” Taka chirped behind his mask.

“How optimistic of you,” Agra’s mandible quirked, “But exactly.”

Moving along familiar paths to return to the stale-smell of the boxing ring was easy by now. Agra was unsure what they would find there. Varu had almost killed him. He couldn’t quickly forget how close he’d come to expiration. Another encounter like that could be their last, but at least Cetanu would accept the offering of their lives while hunting. No disrespect to the dark hunter, but Agra wanted to live long enough to see Taka’s chosen vacation spot.

Electric crime scene tape blocked off the office door. The warning scrolled through even while Taka ripped the bands in half with his paws. Inside, while the body and its lengths of spilling intestines were gone, the iron scent of dried blood remained. It prickled Agra’s olfactory nodes. There was also a lingering reek of panic, but this wasn’t unexpected in spaces where hunts were completed. 

Together, they ravaged the room. Whatever forensics the hotel needed to complete their reports were insignificant to yautja. 

“There is nothing here,” Agra grimaced fitfully with a clench of annoyance to his mandibles.

“I’m not so sure,” Taka hummed before dropping to his knees and slipping a talon between the floorboards. “There is old panic. Then there is new panic. It’s a fresher rank.” He continued to fiddle his finger along hairline cracks.

“A trap door?”

“Possibly. Help me look.”

Instead of joining him, which he had a strong desire to do simply to be closer to the male, Agra returned to the carved-boulder desk and began seeking any sign of a button. The drawers he scrounged through revealed assorted paper, a cigar cutter, and bits and baubs of jewelry. In the front of one was a small firearm. Agra collected it almost as a second thought. It had made it past security after all. It might be useful. He continued to palm the edges until finding a small divot.

“Bingo!”

A door slide opened almost directly underneath Taka. He shuffled back quickly to avoid falling in before glancing down in the revealed pit.

“Bingo indeed, Agra!” Taka fished an arm down into the hole and dragged out the duchess. She was miserable, wet with her own sweat, tears, and fear, but alive, unharmed. Her eyes were bright with relief. Agra peeled off the tape covering her mouth. She swore raggedly.

“It’s really you!? Oh my, thank god! I thought no one would find me! I was so scared!” The duchess clutched at Taka while big globs of tears poured from her eyes. She sniffed and sobbed into his breastplate.

Agra considered re-applying the tape back to her mouth.

“Now we have to bait Varu,” Agra tapped his mask’s chin, “the most isolated place I can remember is the satellite dish on the hotel’s roof, no cameras, hard to scale, easy to communicate from, quiet. It’s just what we need.”

The duchess squeaked and writhed.

“I’m not bait! I’m royalty!” Her tears came heavier, “I’m scared of heights!”

To Taka it felt like holding a wiggling, moaning stray kitten, with a slightly acrid smell of soiling itself. He hoisted her onto his shoulder. His muscled arm tightened like a vice around her squirming waist.

Surprisingly it wasn’t hard to drag a screaming and tied woman to the roof during the dregs of the three-day party. The few able-minded enough to witness the ooman’s third kidnapping winked and chuckled at Taka and Agra as they scaled the hotel’s stairs.

Even the climb up to the dish was unbothered after the ooman gave up her struggling. Taka spread her out gently on the dusty dish’s basin while Agra sent the coordinates to Varu with his wrist console. Looking at the iridescent dome that haloed the city was different from inside the saucer. It glistened above Agra, closer than ever. As he expected, inside the satellite dish was hauntingly quiet. Not even the artificial wind got in. He looked out at the stars beyond the comet’s surface. 

A foreign trepidation began to build in his gut. For some reason, now that he was here preparing for the final confrontation, he wanted to turn tail and run. There was a panic building within him. Unfortunately, acknowledging his fear with action was an impossibility. He had a job to finish.

It was a brief wait between sending the message and Varu’s maroon-scaled hand appearing on the lip of the metal plate. She pulled herself up alongside the young blood she rescued from the sex slaves dungeon.

“Agra. Taka. I’m here.” Varu droned. Her tone was as sharp as a dagger’s point. “What should we do now? Fight to the death?”

“How about an explanation!” Agra hissed. Suddenly, his panic was fraying him like it was some parasite ripping out of his hide after an incubation period. Even as he prepared this plan, he hadn’t cared why Varu had done what she’d done at the chiva, but now knowing why was imperative. If anyone could be a bad blood, he wanted to make sure he avoided that pitfall in its entirety.

“Agra!” Taka snapped, “who cares!”

“Yes, Agra,” Varu’s mandibles clicked, “what good is my explanation to two enforcers in front of a labeled bad blood. I interfered with a chiva. It ended badly for everyone.” When Varu said everyone her monotonous voice sank. “It’s not like enforcers have a choice. Yautja do what we’ve been told for centuries. Hunt the strong. Perish when we are weak. Never care about what’s beyond that mindset.”

Agra’s eyes drifted to the young female standing next to Varu, but then glanced at Taka.

“I care now,” Agra rasped, “I want to know why! If it’s so easy for any noble yautja to become a bad blood, even an enforcer, I want to know what patterns to avoid. What made you do it?”

He knocked against Taka then. This was dangerous territory, but Taka wanted a justification too. He stood up, keeping balance for the duchess, whose meager height hit him mid-abdomen. Honor would keep Varu from firing at him now, that is, if she had any left.

“I agree with Agra. It might be helpful—” Taka clicked, “to know. For our own futures. Explain yourself.”


	26. Chapter 26

Varu erupted in clicking laughter that ended in a bitter sigh. Her gaze drifted between the two enforcers but settled on Taka. The muzzle of her pistol angled towards his head. 

"You want me to explain..?" her voice cracked so she paused. Varu inhaled deeply while her mandibles settled against her mouth. "Then I should probably begin by telling you about Rbh'van. He was your pup, after all." Her sharp, beady eyes bored into Taka. 

Shock rocked up Taka’s spine. He stood paralyzed but his knees felt like they were liquifying. He was grateful for his mask. It would have been humiliating if she could see his rioted expression. 

"Liar!" he hissed at her. "I'm not able to sire any pups!"

Varu gave him a piercing look and chittered sharply "either listen to my explanation or kill me, I honestly don't care anymore."

Taka was too stunned by her confession to interrupt her again. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited shakily for her to continue.

"Rbh'van entered his chiva four cycles ago," Varu explained proudly. "He was a good pup." 

A shadow seemed to pass over her face as she continued in a rough voice, "his chiva brothers managed to injure one of the black serpents. It's blood sprayed my pup who stood next to it. He fell and was attacked…" her voice dropped somberly. 

For only a moment, the formidable enforcer seemed to visibly shrink. Her bitterness was palpable, but she collected herself and continued resolutely, "The overseers told me he died an honorable death." 

She tilted back her crest and chuffed at the star-lit sky above their heads. "I don't know about that… He was mutilated. The serpents tore him limb from limb while he was still as live."

Agra who had listened quietly during her monologue threw a concerned glance at his partner. Taka was standing unmoving, watching Varu'tri closely. What the pauk did any of this matter now? Agra grit his mandibles together in annoyance. Varu’s story was affecting his partner in a way he couldn’t fathom.

Varu sighed wearily and leaned on the transmitting antenna in the middle of the dish. She waved the pistol at Taka. 

"Before Rbh'van, there was Uc'ca. He wasn't yours by the way." She leaned against the mast with her back, shaking her head slowly. Her dark, short dreads swayed. "Impaled through the chest. Both hearts were shredded instantaneously."

"That sounds like an honorable death," Agra couldn't help but growl. Taka kept staring at her quietly.

Varu ignored his comment and continued her story, "Vit'vak-sa'na. He didn't pass his chiva either. Fell down into a chasm. He was crushed against the rocks before he even had a chance to battle a serpent." She sunk against the satellite’s pole while giving Agra a devastated look. Agra’s mask was expressionless, his body stiff.

"Before him I had my first pup, Za'vas. He actually killed one of the hard meats, but he was decapitated by the last serpent. That was a hard chiva. All the youngbloods died." She paused again to gauge their body language since their masks hid everything. Taka was leaning forward almost in a state of concern. His fingers flexed into fists. Agra was unmoving.

"And then there was Aya-ti. My pride and joy. A female. How lucky I was to bear a female!" Her eyes snapped to the pup wearing her old, chipped armor, before straightening the arm holding the weapon and switching back her focus to the silent enforcers. 

"Four of my pups were already dead. Not exactly a good track record. Perhaps I'd focused too much on my career instead of training them," she clicked her mandibles apologetically towards the young female wearing her armor. "I left her to train with her sire's clan, Vi'zada-ya'za."

"Hah!" Taka exclaimed, almost desperate to interject something. "So Agra's theory fits. The sabotage to the chiva wasn't intentional! You didn't mean to kill the clan leader's pup!"

Vary snorted indignantly, "Of course not! What reason would I have to kill a youngblood? It's preposterous."

"You interfered with the chiva to save the last of your progeny," Agra asserted levelly.

"Correct." Varu lowered her pistol and slumped against the antenna as if it was the only thing supporting her now. "She was the last of my pups. I couldn't let her die because of an insane, backwards tradition." She chuckled bitterly. "Our species has a lot to learn… I bet you don't have a clue what it feels like to love someone. What it feels like to have your entire existence depend on another being."

Taka swallowed hard. He felt a lump in his throat that wasn't easily gulped down. But he did. He knew exactly what she was talking about. All his life he had that yautja beside him. He just didn't want to acknowledge it until today. 

"When Aya-ti died, I died. I was going to kill myself," Varu whispered hoarsely. "But then I remembered this little yautja female locked up in an illegal brothel on Vega," her eyes drifted over to the scared pup clinging to her side. "Perhaps you think it's hypocritical of me to only care about her after my own pup died, but yes, I'm not a good person. I've done my fair share of evil working for that red, glorified pimp, but I couldn't leave her in that… prison!"

"You killed Aevis," Taka chittered softly. She looked so wilted. Far from the fierce female he'd been attracted to earlier.

"I didn't kill Aevis." Varu lifted her head and looked back at Te'yli. "She killed that scum, because it was the only way she would be able to heal and move on."

Taka sighed heavily. They came to Vega to chase down a bad blood, a ruthless murderer. Having heard her story he wasn't convinced at all she was a bad yautja. Varu'tri disagreed with an old tradition. While her reasoning might not hold up to a yautja tribunal, it was enough reason for Taka. He too would do anything to save a certain someone. It could’ve happened to anyone.. He'd done his fair share of miscalculations in the past, but he'd always had a partner that could pick up his slack. Varu had no one.

"So kill me then. I have nothing left to say," Varu dropped her weapon on the satellite dish with a metallic clank and spread her arms wide, welcoming.

"I don't think–" Taka began with his paw stretched outward in supplication.

But Taka was interrupted by a pulse blast that flashed in his visor, temporarily blinding him. When he regained his sight, he saw a round hole gaping in the middle of Varu's chest. The blackened flesh encircling the cavity fizzled. Her face was frozen in the same devastated expression she held moments before being shot. Her tall body careened and collapsed on the satellite dish. Taka felt panic and anger surge through his system. Te'yli wailed miserably, curling into a ball over Varu's body.

Taka whipped his head to the side and gawked at his partner. The gun in Agra's paw still smoked from the muzzle as the gray and red mottled enforcer lowered his weapon. Agra stalked past Varu's dead body and plucked the sniffling pup up by her arm. 

No sound came out of Taka's mouth as he gaped underneath the mask. He watched dumbly as Agra dropped the dissolving fluid on Varu's remains and disintegrated her corpse. It bubbled to nothing.

"Well, that was a waste of time. What a sob story! Let's get out of here,” Agra clicked. “We have her confession on record." He dragged the still shaken female pup with him towards the ladder. 

Taka stood rooted to the disc. He couldn't believe Agra had just done that, without discussing it with him first. She had dropped her weapon, there was no need to kill her!

"Are you coming?" Agra drawled impatiently. "We need to get the duchess to her father to get this paya-forsaken lockdown lifted. And this pup," he nodded towards the small female yautja he was holding firmly. "She must have a clan waiting for her."

"You killed Varu after everything she told us…" Taka was fumbling to find any reason in all this madness. His retinas kept replaying Varu's surrender, her death. "How could you do such a thing?"

"How?" Agra tilted his head to the side and watched Taka confusedly. "I just did our job. She admitted to disturbing a chiva. Case closed. I thought you'd be happy. Now we can collect the bounty and there is one less bad blood out there to worry about."

"Why would I be happy!? I liked Varu. She was an excellent enforcer and female. No bounty is worth this," Taka growled at him. "I don't care about the credits!"

"Oh, that's a new one," Agra chuckled heartily. "The guy who didn't even want to pay for the parking or his own pauk-de meals!" 

Taka's growl was so menacing, he practically vibrated. "You boney-ass degenerate cjit..."

Agra froze and stared at Taka through his mask. His free paw clenched so hard it drew blood. 

"Degenerate?! You were equally as _wanting_ if I remember correctly! At least I wasn’t about to spare a bad blood that once got my dick wet! A female that raised my suckling poorly,” Agra rasped.

Furious, he started to rummage through his pack. He pulled out a slip and threw it at Taka. ”Here! Pay for your own parking!"

"Pauk you!" Taka hissed. "You killed the bearer of my pup!"

"Hah!" Agra scoffed and pointed a talon at him. "You didn't even care enough to know you seeded her."

Taka clicked his mandibles grimly over his mouth. He hadn't known! It was Varu's choice not to tell him, not his!

"You're jealous! That's why you killed her…" Taka felt like he was going to vomit.

Agra huffed at him a few times as if he couldn’t find the proper start to his next sentence. He settled for, "Hardly." 

He pushed the female yautja into Taka’s girth and scooped up the duchess instead. "I'm going back to the ship. You can come with, or stay here with Varu's latest _project_ and sulk. I’ll be leaving in an hour."

He swung over the edge swiftly and climbed down with the duchess over his shoulder. Taka stood like a fool with his arms over the trembling pup wearing Varu's armor.  


**Epilogue**

The inside of the Dreadall had never felt so cramped. Not even on that miserable day when the three yautja left Vega together in glum silence. 

Taka was now pacing back and forth between the empty rooms, too apprehensive to eat or exercise. The peak of a chiva pyramid glowed in the distance, as if the red planet's twin suns competed to illuminate its golden carapace. He could only watch its angular shape for short moments before turning around to wander into another room. Te'yli. The last legacy of Varu'tri was inside there now, and there was nothing he could do but wait. 

When they left Vega, Taka was in a state of emotional turmoil. Agra had tried to calm him down, but even the sight of his old partner and friend made him sick to the stomach. Everything the gray enforcer said to him after the death of Varu felt like excuses and cowardice. Like he wanted to rewind everything that transpired at the Utopia and continue like nothing had happened. 

“Taka…” Agra began once he finally cornered Taka in his quarters, “I don’t understand why you are taking this the way you are. We’re yautja. Our honor code, our traditions, our entire culture is what we are. We’re enforcers for pauk’s sake. We kill yautja that break the code. Vega…” Agra paused painfully, “Vega was… a tough case. Maybe confusing. We were challenged, but we came out victorious,” Even as Agra stated the fact, his mandibles drooped sadly.

“Don’t you see, we could’ve become bad bloods ourselves?" Agra's face was full of pain when he said it but Taka still pushed him out of his quarters and shut the door in his face without saying a word. Agra's recant had infuriated him. Nothing he said could change the fact that Agra killed Varu, the bearer of his now dead pup. His only pup. 

The sadness he felt was unlike anything he had ever experienced. Taka understood Varu's motivations, even if they were unyautja-like, even if they were shameful and wrong. To cull the weak in chivas was one of their most ancient and revered traditions. It was to better the entire yautja race, but a secret part of him still mourned his pup. Because it had been _his._

After a few weeks of avoiding each other on the ship, Agra stepped off at their home planet. He felt like he was in the way and it would be best if Taka got some space. Taka hadn't stopped him.

“Don’t put a scratch on her,” Agra gestured to the Dreadall, but his glub remark was withdrawn like he was only going through the motions of their old banter. He sighed heavily. “I’ll be able to tell the next time I see her.”

Taka closed the gangway on him.

It turned out, once Taka tracked them down, that Te'yli's clan wanted nothing to do with her. They deemed her out of practice, not worth the effort to train. Her diminutive appearance might have had something to do with it. She was older than she looked but short for a female. Taka didn't have any other plans. He didn’t feel mentally capable to continue being an enforcer alone, so he decided to train her. It felt like the right thing to do. To honor Varu's memory. He even convinced the seclusive R'ju-kun'ta elders to allow Te'yli to take her chiva on their grounds. 

Now, several cycles later they were finally at the chiva planet. Te’yli was in the process of showing how much she’d grown, while Taka waited anxiously in the ship. The irony wasn't lost on him, but Te'yli had wanted it as much as he did, if not more. Traditions weighed heavily, and in a way Agra had been right. It was what it was. Taka didn't have to like the rules as long as he played by them. Once the chiva was done his duty to Varu would be completed. He would have to figure out what to do next.

The shape of the gigantic barrow towered in his viewport again as he reentered the control room. Taka willed himself to look at it. He wondered what Agra was doing. He hadn't allowed himself to think about his former partner for a long time. What was a few cycles of silence in a lifetime of hundreds?

The beep of his console startled him as it ripped him out of his musings. The result of the trial had come back. All three chiva participants' names flashed in green hieroglyphs. They passed, all of them survived! A pang of pain twisted his chest. He wished he could share this moment with Agra. If Taka shut his eyes and remembered, he could almost feel his old partner grip him on the shoulder and congratulate him.

Perhaps it wasn't too late. 

With trembling fingers, he dialed Agra’s connection sequence on his gauntlet and waited for the link to establish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued.... (Maybe)


End file.
